


A Monster in Paris

by novelogical (writingmonsters)



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, The Alienist (TV)
Genre: Actual Murder, Alternate Universe, And a Falling Chandelier, Attempted Drowning Maybe, Attempted Murder, F/M, Falling In Love, First Time, I Don't Even Know Where to Begin Tagging, It's the Phantom, John and Laszlo Take a Vacation, Kidnapping, Love Confessions, M/M, Phantom of the Opera crossover, Stalking, There's Violence and Torture Inherent Here, This is a Very Alarming List of Tags, and it does not go as planned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2019-08-06 19:13:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16393535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingmonsters/pseuds/novelogical
Summary: Japheth Dury’s shadow hangs heavy over New York even after his death -- in an effort to draw Laszlo out of his lingering melancholy, John drags him across the Atlantic to Paris, and right into the middle of a whole new case in the Palais Garnier. A kidnapped soprano. Murdered stagehands. A phantom in the opera house.(no previous knowledge of Phantom of the Opera required)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oh look, it's the Phantom of the Opera/Alienist crossover AU that no one ever wanted.

The world does not right itself on its axis when Japheth Dury dies.

On the contrary, it seems as if things fall further out of alignment still. John trembles his way to sobriety; watches as the Isaacsons disappear back into the obscurity and ignominy of headquarters’ detective pool. Watches as Sara spends unhappy months at her desk, typing missives and taking messages for Theodore, the taste for detective work – real adventure, the chance to make a real difference – singing in her blood.  

Winter finally releases its grip on New York City and brings with it all manner of promise. Windows are opened at last to air stifled rooms. The trees in Central Park begin to hint at budding. The banks of the Hudson swell and rise. And Sara Howard is unsatisfied.

She tracks the gossip between patrolmen and detectives from her desk at police headquarters, following the threads of the various cases that pass through their doors. So many dismissed. So many wrongly arrested. So many bunglers letting justice go undone.

Sara is not a woman to sit idly by.

And so with the sun high and the spring air brisk against their cheeks, she drags John Moore onto the city streets with her.

They meet often. Following the meandering pathways through the park, debating as they walk the promenade along the Hudson’s banks with John’s hand lightly on Sara’s elbow. It isn’t out of any sense of gentlemanly honor – that had been made clear after she’d threatened to break his fingers for it – rather, as a means of slowing her brisk, determined stride. In a man’s world, at her father’s side, in police headquarters, Sara has learned to charge everywhere; has no patience for strolling when there is a destination to be reached.

Lately, neither one of them says much.

As they walk in the sunshine, Sara lets her eyes -- the pale green of soap bubbles -- rove over the foot traffic along the pathways. “Isn’t it strange?” she muses, considering the silhouettes of men and women who pass. What can she glean from them? Their manner of dress, the way they hold themselves? What secrets lie behind their eyes? “I see in every man and woman now the potential for violence and murder. With just the right amount of pressure applied to our weak points, any one of us could become like Drury.”

She feels John, tall and solid, falter in his step beside her. He clears his throat, casts his hazel eyes across the green of the parkway. “The case affected us all, Sara,” John sighs “more than I think we could possibly have imagined.” For a long moment, he is silent, and then, tipping his face to the sky John says “I still see it sometimes -- in dreams. Murdered boys. Missing eyes. I still see his face.” The admission makes the smoke-and-whiskey timbre of his voice quaver, just enough for Sara to notice.

“How does he cope?” She wonders softly. “Doctor Kreizler. Knowing all the darkest fathoms of men’s minds?” The thought chills her; the good doctor so wrapped up in the psyche’s of others, in the damaged and dangerous thoughts of his charges. Laszlo with his own vulnerable points, his own terrible damage.

The way he had wrenched the story of his childhood -- the ruined arm -- from deep within himself, drawn it out in a snarl of blood and tears and anguish. It was incredible that he had not already buckled, shattered beneath the strain.

“I don’t know,” John sighs, shaking his head. “I’ve known the man for an eternity and I still don’t know how he does _half_ of what he does. Sheer force of will mostly, I would presume.”

“You haven’t spoken to him recently, have you?”

“No.” And that is the part that stings the most; Laszlo’s near disappearance from John’s life. After everything -- for him to pull so abruptly away, the ties between them so badly severed. “No, I’m afraid I’ve hardly seen head nor tail of him since… well.” John shrugs. “He’s holed himself up in the Institute, as a means of healing I think. Surrounding himself with life, young minds who are not yet set on an irredeemable path.”

Sara nods. The furrow between her brows only deepens.

“The last time I saw him, he didn’t even speak to me.” The memory lodges itself tight in John’s throat, roughens his words. “I was visiting Joseph. As I was leaving, I spotted Laszlo at the end of the corridor; it was _strange_ , Sara. He didn’t say a word, but our eyes met -- this long look passed between us.” The image of Kreizler, half-shadowed, conjured in John’s mind. Care-worn. Tragic. “He looked… He didn’t look well.” The pronouncement escapes him before he can properly examine it. “I worry for him.”

The look Sara offers him is too soft, too knowing. She has always had too much insight. “You’re a good friend to him, John Moore,” she says. “I think the case of Japheth Drury caused him more suffering than Doctor Kreizler will ever admit to.”

John nods, squeezing her fingers where they rest on his forearm. “I fear that nightmare is impossible to move on from. For any of us. Japheth Drury, all those poor children, they are _enmeshed_ in the very fabric of this city -- every alleyway, every slum and rooftop…”

“You should spend some time away from the city,” Sara prescribes firmly. “You and Doctor Kreizler both.”

John snorts. “You suggest we take the air? Retire to the countryside?” But, he has to admit, there is a certain appeal to the notion. Escaping New York, even just for a little while.

“Don’t scoff.” Sara swats him. “All I’m saying is it may do you both some good to be away from New York for a time. A chance to move past the dark cloud that still hangs over this city in your minds.”

“And what about you? Are you not affected still?” John observes the subtle play of expressions on her face from the corner of his eye.

Sara’s lips thin. “I am not unaffected,” she informs him, her voice flinty. “But… I suppose I have found a purpose in it.”

“What do you mean?”

Finding herself pinned by his keen, inquiring look, Sara stares out across the fathomless, green-gray slosh of the Hudson’s waters, watching the play of sunlight on the crests and troughs of the current. “I’m thinking of leaving my work at headquarters,” she says. Her voice is cool, firm.

“But…” The admission stops John in his tracks. “But -- you worked so hard for it, Sara. I don’t understand, why would you give it up?”

And here, she stops too. Turns to face him fully with the pale green of her eyes alight. He finds both his hands caught up in her own, held fast. “Because John.” He has never seen her smile so broadly, all white teeth and giddy, grinning cheeks. “I’m going to start my own agency.” She practically glows with the revelation, the secret held so close to her chest finally brought out into the light. “A detective agency, especially for women and those issues they feel they cannot bring to the police."

“Sara--” John beams. “That’s… Well it’s _wonderful_.” He would embrace her, if they weren’t in full view on the promenade, would lift her up and spin her through the air in delight. “It’s a splendid idea, Sara. There is no one more suited to the task.”

She does not quite manage to hide the soft huff of laughter that escapes her, forever delighted and bemused by John Moore and his effusiveness.

“I had wondered…” And here Sara falters, her cheeks pink with the praise, eyes sliding away as she considers her words. “I’ve already spoken to Lucius and Marcus and I wanted to ask you -- well, you and Kreizler both -- can I expect to avail myself of your insights if I undertake this? I had hoped to count on the pair of you as resources?”

“Of course, Sara. Of course, you know you have only to ask -- myself or Kreizler,” John is quick to assure her. “I admit, I don’t know precisely what services I can offer…”

“More than you imagine, John Moore,” Sara assures him fondly. “You ought to consider it, though. Talk to Doctor Kreizler.”

And so, after turning the idea over and over again in his brain, John does.

He camps himself out on the steps of 185 East Broadway, beside the bronze plaque that gleams dully in the bleak sunshine. _Kreizler Institute._ For all that Laszlo has shrugged off their company, has been surly and withdrawn, his routines have not changed. John smokes a chain of cigarettes, lighting one off the other, creating a fug of acrid smoke that lingers on the air while he waits.

When Laszlo does appear, frowning and preoccupied as he shrugs on his coat, John is on him in an instant -- tossing down the remainder of his cigarette and proclaiming as he grinds out the stub beneath his bootheel “two tickets -- just the pair of us. Anywhere you like.”

Laszlo pauses on the step, taken aback by the sudden appearance -- by John’s ebullience -- and looks him up and down with keen, curious eyes. “Are you drunk?”

“I am no such thing.” John stiffens, prideful, even as he fights back a smile at the warm rush of affection that blooms in his chest at this; the familiarity, their old bickering. Even Laszlo’s prickliness is preferable to a cold shoulder. “I’ve merely been doing some thinking.”

“Dangerous,” Laszlo tuts. His sharp ochre eyes rove along the street, unwilling to linger too long on John. “How long have you been lurking there?”

“Longer than I care to admit to,” John confesses with an easy shrug. And then -- gentle, insistent, he asks “how are you, Laszlo? Really?”

Laszlo considers his answer. They have known one another too long now, are too fond of one another, for him to do John the disservice of lies. But there is no way to admit that the whole business has gutted him -- not just Drury, but Connor and Byrnes and the Four Hundred, Mary’s death and the stinking, festering corruption in the city. His own raw, scabbed over wounds ripped open and left to bleed.

And it would be bad enough if he _hurt;_ if this thing taking root in his core were sharp with anguish, made him weep. Let him _feel_ something. But it is a dead and rotten thing -- necrotizing. An infusion of ether in his veins that numbs every inch of him.

“I am tired, John.” The admission weighs heavy.

John can see it; the bow of Laszlo’s head, the weary curve of his spine. All wan pallor and dusky shadows in the hollows of his eyes. He aches to lighten the burden, to ease some of the ache where he can. “I know,” he sighs. His palm when it lands on the nape of Laszlo’s neck is warm and heavy. Grounding.

Laszlo bends under his touch, seems to soften just a fraction, and then all at once he is shaking John off, hastening down the Institute’s front steps to join the drift of foot traffic along the street. John keeps pace easily, all long legs and easy, loping stride.

The silence stretches between them, punctuated by the rattle of carriage wheels on the cobble stones, the shouting of pedestrians and cabbies, mothers calling for children from apartment block stoops. Silence between them has always been so easy, has never required an excess of words -- but they are raw and wounded, and John is acutely aware of the strain at the corners of Laszlo’s eyes, of his own disquiet that makes his skin crawl.

He feels too aware of the world and too out-of-step with it and Laszlo -- his balance, his counterpoint -- is swaying just as wildly out of sync.

“Sara has decided to quit her position at police headquarters,” John offers into the suffocating No Man’s Land of silence between them as they walk side-by-side. She will not begrudge him the gossip. And John cannot help the bright note of pride in his voice as he recounts her words, charmed as he is by her willful brilliance. “She has decided to pursue an independent practice as an investigator.”

That earns him a faint, thin smile from Laszlo. A sideways glance with glittering eyes. “I can’t say I am surprised,” the alienist admits. Fond. “Miss Howard is far too intelligent and headstrong a woman to remain a secretary. She will do great credit as a private detective, though I’m sure Roosevelt will be sorry to see her go.”

“Indeed,” John agrees. “She asked after you -- I had to tell her I didn’t rightly know.” If Laszlo Kreizler has dedicated his life to reading the minds of men, John Moore has dedicated most of his life to learning to read Laszlo Kreizler. “You’ve been avoiding us, Laszlo… I’ve missed you.”

John’s candor -- the soft admission -- lands like a blow across Laszlo’s shoulders.

“I’ve been busy.”

“You have always been busy, but it never before interfered in our friendship,” John sighs. And then, insistent, he presses “I meant it. A brief respite -- time away from New York, from everything that’s happened.” The idea has caught, snagged in his brain, and there is no letting go of it now.

“Impossible.” Laszlo pronounces it as though that will be the final word on the matter. “Perhaps the society pages will keep in your absence, but I have _work,_ John. There is the Institute to think of, my presence in the courts -- I have responsibilities…”

“And I am making you _my_ responsibility, damn it!” They are in the middle of the street. It is entirely inappropriate when John catches him by the arm, spins Laszlo around to face him -- his voice too loud, too heated. But then, neither one of them has ever paid much heed to propriety. John digs his fingers into the material of Laszlo’s coat, bruising his shoulders, afraid to let him go. “If things weigh half as heavily on you as they do me -- and I suspect they might do _moreso_ \-- you cannot just…” he scrounges for the words, sputtering, infurated “... bury yourself in work and bully your way through it!”

Laszlo bristles. Draws up his compact frame -- all haughty chin and regal, unamused lift of straight eyebrows. It is the fiercest, the most alive, John has seen him in months. “Forgive me,” he sneers “I must have forgotten which one of us is the doctor.”

“No,” John snarls, drawing in close enough that he feels the stutter of Laszlo’s breath, catches the widening of bright brown eyes, the white ring of panic around his iris. He wants Laszlo discomposed -- wants him rattled and knocked back on his heels enough that the man might see some sense. “You have forgotten which of us has done this song and dance before, only _my_ vices were not so austere.”

“John.”

“Come away with me, Laszlo. It will do us both some good to be away from this city.” He softens, strokes his hands up and down Laszlo’s arms. Insistent. “We could go west -- visit the mineral springs…”

Laszlo scoffs, shaking him off. “You are not dragging me to some Colorado spa town, John.”

“No? Fine.” John trails after him, not one to consider giving up so easily. _The question you should be asking is not why I push you away -- but why do you stay?_ “We’ll go wherever you like, just… consider it?”

Laszlo, scowling, sweeps ahead of him -- a knot of frustration and close-guarded turmoil -- spotting Stevie and the calash loitering along the Williamsburg Bridge. The line of his mouth, hidden in his beard, is grim, hard-set. But he hesitates stepping into the calash; the deep-set jasper eyes that find John are bright, glimmering with something fragile and wary.

John sets a feather-light hand on his good elbow, guiding Laszlo up into the carriage seat. It is a rare concession that Laszlo lets him.

And that might be the end of it -- little resolved and the wounds still raw and untended -- but Laszlo gives a long-suffering sigh. John knows him too well; catches the faintest hint of a smile that softens his gentle features, warming his eyes.

“We will have to make arrangements.” Laszlo leans back out of the calash. “There is my absence from the Institute to account for, the care of my patients to arrange, travel to arrange, accommodations…”

John’s heart soars. “But you're agreeing?”

“Not to Colorado.”

He laughs. “Very well. Not Colorado -- anywhere you choose.”

* * *

They had spent half an hour in Laszlo's 17th Street drawing room; and John had been willing to go anywhere, really, as long as it brought a change of scene. As long as he was at Laszlo's side. But he had postured and debated for the sake of watching Laszlo grow more and more animated; the alienist steadily coming to life again as he had spoken.

“Paris, John?” Laszlo had been skeptical, but he had laughed. “You are mad.”

“Why?” Tapping a cigarette from the slim, silver case, John had slouched in the plush armchair, more at ease then -- teasing Laszlo -- than he had felt in months. “It's perfect! Good food, fine art, beautiful women -- the opera, if you insist on making me suffer.”

Of course, a boyhood of summers spent on the water had gifted John a solid constitution and firm sea legs -- the week at sea aboard the _SS Adriatic_ is a charm of walks on the deck in the fresh salt-air, decent food and pleasure in the passenger's smoking room.

It is Laszlo, they discover, who suffers -- not quite built of such hardy stuff.

“I was no more than four years old when my parents emigrated to New York,” he tells John softly when he has been coaxed out onto the deck; green-faced and unsteady on legs that behave like gelatin. “I hardly have any memory of the journey. A pity, or I would never have agreed to this venture.”

John laughs at that, squeezing Laszlo’s hand where it is tucked into the crook of his elbow. He is at least sharp enough not to ask after Laszlo’s past -- to take the small offerings of information he is given. The wind is high off the open sea, pinking their cheeks and tousling their hair and he catches the good nature in Laszlo’s rich brown eyes as the edge of his scarf flutters on the breeze. “Only one day more,” John reminds the alienist as they make their slow perambulations about the upper deck. Nothing but glittering water and pale, bright sky for miles. “We’ll dock in Liverpool and then our travel will be purely transcontinental.”

“A small mercy, that,” Laszlo hums, distant.

He leans heavily against John’s side, seeming somehow diminished -- drained -- by the rigors of sea travel; rough waters and an unsettled stomach. And John should not find such reassurance in it, Laszlo’s quiet discomfort, but the weight of him pressed against John’s side, the warmth of his compact, solid frame and the marginal softening of some of his myriad of stubborn defenses -- it is a comfort. A great relief to feel Laszlo so close, real and reassuringly human, after such a long absence.

They are lucky to find a pair of lounge chairs on the passenger’s deck, the wicker frames warmed by the sunshine. Neither one of them says much, comfortable in their silence, as John takes out his drawing kit and Laszlo’s keen eyes rove over the milling of first and second class passengers; curious, considering.

John smudges charcoal and pencil lead in the creases of his fingers, lets himself disappear into the flick of a finely sharpened stylus across the thick vellum -- catching the folds of a woman’s skirt, the curve of an elbow, the shadow of an eye.

In between the faint impressions of their fellow passengers, he is forever aware of Laszlo just a few feet away, curling into the lounge chair -- drawing himself up into a knot of weary, sun-warmed limbs. John’s pencils take up more familiar features; the soft fan of tawny eyelashes, a loose curl of over-long hair. Stubborn mouth. A blunt sweep of shoulder.

He hardly need bother with studying the gentle contours of Laszlo’s face; it is one John knows almost as well as his own. The minute twitches of hidden smiles. The brightness of laughter in his deep brown eyes. The pouts and vicious scowls and the little hints of anguish that tighten at the corners of his eyes.

There is a faint knot between his straight eyebrows, a mark of discomfort he has borne since they set foot on the _Adriatic_ , and John thinks how easy it would be to reach across the space between them -- to smudge it away with the pad of his thumb as he does the fine, minute mistakes on the drawing pad.

“I can feel you thinking from all the way over there, John,” Laszlo murmurs without opening his eyes. Not asleep after all.

Caught, John cannot help but smile to himself as he sets aside the charcoal and pencils. “What gave it away?” he teases. “The smell of smoke?"

Laszlo’s thin-lipped smile is enigmatic, and then all of a sudden bilious. In an instant he is scrambling up off the chaise, a flurry of compact limbs and white-eyed panic. And John is on his feet -- reaching for him, Laszlo’s name halfway to his lips -- when the alienist lurches for the bulwark, hits the rail with enough force he nearly pitches himself over the side, emptying the meager contents of his unsettled stomach into the sea.

“Oh Laszlo, you poor wretch.” John holds a fistful of his jacket, bracing Laszlo as the alienist shakes and vomits; groaning. He strokes the clammy nape of his neck, tossing a scathing glare toward a fellow passenger who dares to stare too long. “I think perhaps that’s enough of the passenger decks for you.”

When there is nothing left for Laszlo to throw up, he spits once, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, and leans heavily against John’s side. “I think, perhaps, this is enough of the _sea_ for me.”

John holds him upright and steady, squeezing him close. “I’ve told you I’m afraid I don’t know much about curing seasickness, but I do know a thing or two about weathering an upset stomach and a sore head -- let’s get you back to our quarters. Will you do your best not to be sick on me?”

Laszlo offers up an aggrieved, sideways look. “Think of it as your penance, John,” he pronounces, out of breath “for all those hangovers I have nursed you through.”

“Nursed?” John feigns an affront, navigating them toward the narrow cabin stairwell. “Your bedside manner leaves much to be desired Doctor Kreizler -- ‘bullied’ is more like.” He will say any foolishness, do anything now, to keep this. Laszlo -- even sick to his stomach -- needling John with the amusement dancing brilliant waltzes in his bright brown eyes, and the dark blight of shadows beginning to ease from around their souls.

Liverpool tomorrow. And from there -- Paris.


	2. Chapter 2

It is a late afternoon that sees their final carriage winding its way through the streets of the 1st arrondissement after too many days of train coaches and carriages. Laszlo has given up on the pretense of reading, having skimmed blindly over the same page in his slim treatise on psycho-pathology too many times with not a word registering.

He shifts again on the thinly padded bench, trying to disguise the effort to haul his wasted right arm into a less uncomfortable position. The grind and throb of old pain in the joints has been replaced by the crawling prick of pins-and-needles up and down the atrophied length of muscle. There is little room afforded them in the interior of the carriage, cramped and uncomfortable as it is. They knock knees and tangle their ankles together in an effort to find a somewhat comfortable arrangement.

In the opposite seat, John leans against the window and watches the Paris streets roll past, the silver cigarette case spinning relentlessly in his fingers. The case clicks open and closed, John’s hazel eyes distant, and Laszlo watches as the same thin cigarette migrates irritably from the case to John’s lips and back again.

“Are you anxious?” Laszlo finds himself asking waspishly, wanting to provoke a reaction. Prodding the scabbed-over wound. “Or just in need of a drink?”

John rolls his eyes, grown impatient and edgy with their prolonged confinement. “I need to be out of this damned carriage.”

Laszlo makes a vague sound of agreement, kneading slim fingers into the crook of his elbow where the pain lingers, dull and steady below the spasms of creeping numbness. “It would seem you have simply exchanged one vice for another, rather than addressing the underlying cause of your addictions -- would you agree?”

The cigarette case revolves faster and faster in John’s nimble fingers. “Don’t analyze me, Laszlo.”

Seemingly nonchalant, Laszlo shifts again in his seat to study John more keenly as he speaks, his eyes brilliant with the particular academic light accompanying a lecture, a bit of scientific discovery. “There is a very interesting theory being posited by Freud on psychosexual development; the idea is still very early in its conception but it has made its way among the prominent minds in the psychological field.” He purses his lips, animated and all of a sudden dangerous -- the light in his eyes predatory, scalpel-sharp and discerning. “The first stage is hemitaxia -- the oral stage. In this stage an infant who is neglected or over-protected becomes fixated on oral stimulation. These fixations manifest as obsessive smoking and alcoholism, an engagement in oral sexual pleasure…”

“Laszlo.” A warning note. The cigarette case stops turning its circuits.

“I never did ask you,” Laszlo carries on -- simply curious. Clinical. He wants to watch John explode, wants to see what it looks like to feel, to be furious, to hurt -- and he hates himself for it, but he cannot stop himself from pushing, twisting in the knife. “You quit drinking, I assume you also ceased your visits to the brothels?”

“ _Laszlo._ ” His name is thunderous, exploding from John’s lips. The illustrator’s face gone red and heated. “Enough!” John clenches his hands in his lap, fighting to hide the way they tremble. A furious, embarrassed addict -- eviscerated again by Kreizler who is too sharp and too cruel.

Whatever Laszlo sees in his expression, whatever he was seeking with this needling, he appears to have found it. The steady, hawk-like gaze suddenly averted, searching the avenues beyond the window. “We’re here.”

Almost before the carriage can clatter to a halt outside _Le Meurice_ hotel, Laszlo is on his feet, bashing John’s shins in his haste, and clambering downt the running boards. John tumbles out after him, knees creaking -- barely catches the alienist’s dark specter disappearing into the hotel’s foyer.

Cursing, left to unload their luggage, John hands over the cabbie’s fee and traces Laszlo’s route through the ornate doors into the golden-lit lobby. The soles of his boots click a sharp staccato on the polished honeycomb tiles. He is struck by the opulence of the place; all gilt and creamy walls, and Laszlo pacing an impatient back-and-forth. And for all his upper class emigre upbringing, Laszlo is too much the academic, is simply too damn _stubborn_ \-- looking impossibly out of place in the foyer of _Le Meurice_ with his dark suit and out of fashion looks; the over-long hair, the immaculately kept beard.

He watches as Laszlo draws his hand up and down his bad right arm, the limb clutched protectively to his side.

“We have a joint suite,” Laszlo informs him as John hands their luggage off to a hovering porter. “I hope that is acceptable?”

“Yes.” Distracted, John itches for a cigarette, for the heavy curl of tobacco on his tongue. But he thinks of Laszlo's cutting insights, the emotionless recriminations, and instead digs blunt fingernails into his palms, looking anywhere but into the alienists's eyes. “Yes, of course, that's fine.”

The suite is elegant without verging on opulent -- a pair of bedrooms conjoined by the sprawl of a gracious, well-furnished parlor. John is quick to strip off his coat, tossing it across the nearest bed to lay his claim. He is grateful when he spots the deep, claw-footed bath, muscles sore from the days of cramped travel already unwinding at the prospect of a decent soak.

Laszlo remains stranded in the parlor, looking about him and seeming to absorb none of their new surroundings. And John can see the walls being built, brick by brick -- Laszlo closing himself away into the private shades of his own thoughts. Narrow shoulders curve inward, the graceful fingers tracing an absent-minded caress down his own damaged forearm in an effort to self-soothe.

“Are you sore?” As the question falls between them, John realizes the taboo he threatens to break -- dangerous territory, skirting the question of Laszlo's arm. “I'm afraid even the most luxurious carriage would be uncomfortable after such a long journey…”

“Does it matter?” Laszlo interrupts his blathering tonelessly, the dark eyes not quite willing to meet John's across the parlor.

John scoffs. “Of course it matters. You’re in pain, Laszlo, if there’s something --”

“There is nothing remarkable about that, John,” Laszlo murmurs. The words are dull, weariness rubbing down the edges of his accent, muting the color in his voice. “The bones were never set properly once they were broken -- and even if they had been, the fractures were of such significant nature…” He trails off. Shrugs. “Pain is unremarkable.”

In recent months, the pain in his arm had been the only thing Laszlo had been able to feel -- the ache that matched his pulse, the grind of the bones that his nine-year-old body had cobbled back together with the haphazard application of osteoblasts. He hated it and he was grateful for it in equal measure; a reminder that he was still alive. That he _had_ to still be capable of feeling if he could hurt.

“ _Laszlo_.”

John has never asked outright -- not even after the revelations dug up from old society columns about Mozart and Sara’s stubborn detective work. He knows enough; an abbreviated version of the truth laid between them. It was not an accident, it was not a congenital defect; rather the drunken malice of a father. And he does not need to push to know more.

He drifts closer to Laszlo, the invisible threads that have long been tied between them drawing him slowly across the parlor and into the alienist’s circle. And he can almost feel it, the way Laszlo tenses, the tight rise of shoulders to meet his ears -- shrinking from John’s scrutiny, shirking any comfort he might offer.

“You did not answer my original question.” Laszlo addresses him without turning, just the curve of a cheek -- his face stubborn and guarded in profile.

“ _What_ question?”

“Have you simply exchanged vices,” Laszlo does turn then, intent on gauging John’s reaction. “Without addressing that which causes you to seek a drink, a cigarette, or the company of strange women?”

And somehow this time, in the private stillness of the hotel suite, with Laszlo so close -- seeming at once so fragile and defensive -- John finds himself compelled to answer. “I don’t know,” he admits, letting himself sidle up to the idea. Circling it. Considering it slowly. “Perhaps in some ways.”

His brother, sinking to the bottom of Lake Erie, sluggish and dead-eyed with the morphine in his veins. The funeral where John had shattered so spectacularly -- had wept and railed against his family and the knickerbocker society that had turned their backs on his brother, would turn their backs on _him._  Julia and the wretched, disastrous engagement and its devastating conclusion. And Drury. The goddamned case that left him seeing pools of blood and severed limbs out of the corners of his eyes; dreaming of floating eyeballs and violence and dead boys lying naked in the streets.

“You treat a wound with antiseptic, prescribe tinctures for pain,” John posits, watching as Laszlo massages at the knots in the muscle just below his shoulder. “perhaps my vices, as you say, are a kind of treatment.”

“Alcoholism is not medicinal, John.” The alienist skewers him with a dubious look. “You cannot simply hope to cope with the specters of your trauma and hope to drown them or smoke them or fuck them away.” The word is so foreign -- so _vulgar_ \-- on his lips. “Medicine, psychology, requires that you confront the source of the wound for it to heal. Otherwise it can only fester.”

Ambivalence sits heavy at the base of John’s throat, lodged behind his breastbone. “And that is what you’ve done?” he demands, frustrated. Tired of bandying words, of Laszlo’s bloody-mindedness, of having his mind scooped inside-out and picked apart. “Confronted your wounds? Or do you just close yourself off and hide from them?”

He regrets the vitriol in his words the moment they have flown from his tongue -- a taste of Kreizler’s own medicine, yes. But John feels _cruel_ nonetheless. If he had hauled off and slapped Laszlo across the face it might have garnered much the same reaction.

The alienist’s eyes are too bright, shining suddenly damp and angry and shocked. A dangerous quiver to his lips, the curve of his nostrils blanched -- breath snarling in his throat. He looks like he might tear John’s tongue from his head. Like he might finally break and shatter into a million pieces.

“All we can do is cope, Laszlo,” is John’s final, decisive offering. Counsel and recrimination all at once. “You’ll forgive me if the way in which I do so does not quite meet your standards.” And, snatching up his discarded coat, he flees the suite -- nerves jangling -- in a huff. “I need some air.”

Dinner in the _Le Meurice_ ’s glittering rococo dining room is a tense affair.

* * *

_The walls breathe, flickering and shifting with shadows -- things that move and dance just beyond the guttering candle light._

_They are close._

_The pulse in his throat beats a relentless drumbeat -- Japheth. Japheth. Japheth. The name echoing down the hollow corridors._

_Where is he?_

_Rising up from Hell; Lucifer himself. Twisted. Hulking. The bedraggled face twitch, spasming -- blood in the gnashing teeth. The crunch of bone. And..._

_“Laszlo!”_

_No. No. God, no -- where is he? Shadows molding and reforming and there is no Reservoir -- there is the still surface of the bathhouse water, clouded red with blood, and the body floating face-down pierced by boater’s hooks._

_No._

_“Laszlo!”_

_Dead._

_He is dead and gone. The soft torso carved open, cracked apart and emptied. Pillaged. The face John could recreate from memory -- every freckle and curvature and subtle shift in emotion -- ravaged, screaming silently._

_And the eyes._

_“Laszlo! Laszlo --_ no!”

_Where had they gone? The eyes like sparks -- mirthful and furious and kind in equal measure. Not Laszlo. Not Laszlo…_

_And the blood-red water of the bath rises up to meet him; closes over John’s head and swallows him whole. He kicks and screams and it presses in, binding his limbs, seizing the air in his chest -- and the pale, dead face comes rising up to meet him as he sinks._

_Thomas._

“No!”

John comes awake shouting, soaked in sweat. The strange bed sheets have turned into a vise, tangling his arms and legs, and he kicks and writhes to throw them off -- bolting upright and gasping great lungfuls of the calm night air.

Oh, Thomas.

Thomas and Japheth and…

 _Laszlo_.

There is no going back to sleep now. Trembling hands tie the sash of his housecoat around his waist, unsteady legs propelling him through the darkened bedroom, out into the parlor suite.

Everything is silent. Still. Lit in a blue-white wash of Parisian moonlight. And John starts to breathe easier as he moves, the tremors in his hands settling as he trails his fingers over the low, curving back of a settee, tracing the embossed satin. _Just a dream_ , he tells himself, each breath loud in the silence. _It was just a dream._

And then his eyes snag, catching on the specter in the window -- a motionless, white silhouette. Laszlo; barefoot and wearing only his nightshirt, lingering in the large, half-open window. Alive. Whole. Somehow looking smaller, more fragile than John can ever recall seeing him before -- lost to his own private thoughts, vulnerable in the thin nightshirt with the window propped halfway open.

“Laszlo?” There is something plaintive in the way John says his name, something desperate. _Please be real. Please be here and whole and safe._

“John.” Laszlo jumps, startled from his reverie, whirling from the twilit cityscape of mist and shadow to meet John’s gaze. Disconcerted. Immediately, the glimmer of panic in his dark eyes is replaced by an intent, startling concern. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I --” John steadies himself on the low Bergere chair, the cramped and breathing walls of Croton Reservoir, the blood, and Laszlo’s empty eye sockets still super-imposed on the surface of the waking world. His breath catches. “I was dreaming.”

“You have nightmares.” It is not a question.

“Yes.” John is raw and wrung out, his nerves rattling -- the chair’s wooden frame creaks in his white-knuckled grip. Distantly, he is aware of Laszlo’s careful movements, of the window latch clicking shut and the silent, hesitating footfalls that carry the alienist across the parlor.

Laszlo’s umber eyes, safe in his familiar face and remarkably gentle, study John; not the usual dissection, but something kinder. Considering. “You cried out in your sleep. I could not help but overhear you.” And then, with a faint, confused crease between his brows, he adds -- almost prompting -- “you called my name.”

“I’m sorry,” John is quick to apologize, his mind flying apart in a hundred different directions, voice shaking. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

He is dismissed with a click of the tongue, a quick jerk of the head. Laszlo purses his lips. “You didn’t.”

John squeezes the fingers of his free hand into a fist, waits until the tremors start to subside before he risks a deep breath. Dares to lay bare the tangles of his psyche for Laszlo to unpick. “It used to just be Thomas in my dreams. Drowning. Now, though…” The breath shudders in his chest, his ribs constricting. “I see every single one of those dead boys in my sleep -- the eyeless, mangled bodies.”

_“John.”_

“That night, in the passageways of Croton Reservoir, plays over and over again in my mind.” The words are set loose, admissions tumbling from his lips; the nightmare sketched out time and time again against his eyelids. And John chokes on the confession, his eyes hot and stinging with tears. “Sometimes it’s Sara. Sometimes Joseph. So many times, Laszlo, so many times it is you. Dead.” _Only a dream._ Only a dream, but half a memory. Enough to break his heart -- to leave him sick and stricken to the core. “What do all your books and theories have to say about that? How does one banish a ghost?”

It shocks Laszlo, to see John so overwrought; to see the few tears that slip from the corners of his eyes. And he knows he could expound on theory and the developing psychoanalytical perspectives on nightmares -- but that is all irrelevant now. Instead, he makes his pronouncement, low and gentle. “By coming to bed with me tonight.”

John’s mouth falls open.

It is an uncharacteristic tenderness when Laszlo’s palm cups his cheek, smoothing away the escaped tears with icy fingers. John flinches at the fingerprints that leave after-impressions of frost; the numb chill of Laszlo’s skin. He covers the hand with his own -- unthinking -- trapping Laszlo’s palm between his own warm hand and cheek.

“You’re half-frozen.”

Laszlo is silent, his eyes -- near black in the darkness -- guarded as John bundles both hands into his own; the doctor’s slender fingers curled into the artist’s broad, square palms. He had been drifting, so far away from himself, his mind lost out over the gabled, sloping rooftops of the arondissement and now, coming back to himself, Laszlo is aware of the fine prick of gooseflesh raised over his skin, of just how cold he is.

“What were you doing up so late, staring out the window?” John asks the question to Laszlo’s hands, rubbing his thumbs across the ridges of his knuckles.

There is too much between them -- too many open wounds shared, too much history -- they simply know one another too well, and Laszlo is too tired to obfuscate. “You are not the only one to have unsettling dreams, my friend.”

“Drury?”

Sometimes it is Drury who is the monster in his dreams. Sometimes Jesse Pomeroy or one of the countless other dark and damaged minds to have crossed his path, passed through his care. Sometimes it is his father and he wakes with his face wet and his arm throbbing. More often, though, it is Laszlo himself who is the monster of his own nightmares.

“And then some.” Laszlo shrugs. “Come -- misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows, after all. We may still manage a few hours rest.”

The hotel beds are more than large enough to accommodate two grown men, with room to spare between them. And yet, like magnets drawn together, they seek each other out in sleep -- shifting and curling closer. Laszlo’s bare feet are blocks of ice that find purchase against John’s shins, his knees finding their way into a vulnerable stomach, a kidney. John snores faintly, a low rumble that vibrates against Laszlo’s cheek, rising and falling with each slow breath.

There are no more dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Unfortunately, I’m fudging facts here a little bit - Freud’s theory on the stages of psychosexual development wasn’t presented until 1905, but for the sake of quality dialogue we can pretend he was kicking it around in the psychological community a bit earlier than that before making it “official”.
> 
> Laszlo quotes Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” to John -- “misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows”.


	3. Chapter 3

The third day in Paris, with the sky lilac-pale behind the cloud cover, finds them in an unhurried open carriage aimed down the _Rue de Rivoli_ in the direction of the Louvre where they will find the company of one Mlle Julia Valcourt. An old friend, Laszlo informs John, and no one better to acquaint them with the inner workings of the Parisian scene.

“You will like her,” Laszlo promises, warmed by the silvery sunshine. The tightness has started to unknot itself from between his shoulder blades, the corners of his slender mouth softened. He rolls his head to study John beside him. “She is a sculptor -- very fine work.”

“And just how did you come to befriend this French sculptor?” John cannot help but be intensely curious. Laszlo's friends are few enough as it is -- friends of the  _ female _ persuasion? Practically nonexistent.

“She was a patient, for a very brief time,” Laszlo concedes, quiet eyes drifting over the facades of cream-and-white marbled buildings, the multitudes of windows and shopfronts. His voice is low. “What she had been taught to understand as an affliction, I was able to help her understand as natural to the variation of the human experience. We...” He hesitates -- John catches the shadow that clouds briefly over his expression. “Well. We have an understanding.” He offers John a faint, thin smile. “And she is a great patron of the Opera.”

John  _ hmph _ s, cannot help the amusement that teases the corners of his mouth into a wry grin. What a peculiar creature, Laszlo Kreizler.

He follows Laszlo from the carriage, clambering out into the open air of the stone courtyard, the twin wings of the  _ Musée du Louvre _ stretching out to embrace them.

Drawing his pocket watch on its silver chain from within his waistcoat, Laszlo clicks his tongue and scans the courtyard -- the milling bodies of visitors, strolling couples arm in arm, a few intrepid art students braving the storms of pigeons with their easels to paint and sketch in the open air. “We are late.” And with that pronouncement he takes off across the cobblestones, brisk and purposeful, scattering the pigeons in his wake. 

It is John who spots her first, though he does not know the identity of Madmoiselle Valcourt, only notes the auburn shine of her hair beneath her jaunty, dark-brimmed hat, the eager clip of her stride in their direction.

“ _ Bon Docteur. _ ” 

“Julie.” Laszlo moves to greet her, cordial. His voice warm in a way that it never is when they have visited fellow academics who lay claim to the doctor with ‘ _ old friend _ ’s and ‘ _ my dear colleague _ ’s. The affection is genuine. “It’s good to see you.”

Julie catches Laszlo by the hands, plaster dried in white flecks across the ridges of her knuckles, and draws him in to kiss each bearded cheek in the European fashion. “A surprise, you coming all the way to Paris; though not an unwelcome one.” Her eyes sparkle, drinking in the pair of them. “You had a safe journey, I take it?”

“Indeed.” Laszlo’s answer is perfunctory, accompanied by a slight, awkward incline of his head, his cheeks flushed slightly where she has kissed him. “Julie, this is --”

“Mister Moore,” she answers for the both of them, looking John up and down with a sharp, appraising eye. And then she smiles; a wide, mischievous smile that crinkles the corners of her eyes. “Laszlo writes of you often.”

“John, please,” he manages to eek out, disarmed as he is by her casual revelation.  _ Laszlo writes of you often _ . And what did  _ that _ mean? Especially when Laszlo fixes Julie with a stricken, dangerous look that might well turn her to smolders. “I hope he has not damaged my character too badly in your eyes, Miss Valcourt.” 

“ _ Julie _ ,” she insists, squeezing his hand in her own. The dry plaster dust still clinging to her knuckles is familiar and gritty against John's palm. “We are all friends here, no? Don't look so alarmed --  _ le Bon Docteur _ speaks only with great fondness.”

“You'll forgive me if I find that difficult to believe, knowing him as I do.” John finds himself teasing, catching the flush that pinks the tips of Laszlo's ears as they allow Julie to usher them onward, directing them out of the daylight and into the museum proper.

That earns an easy laugh like the ringing of church bells. “ _ Tu avais raison, ma chérie” _ Julie addresses Laszlo with her keen, mischievous smile. “ _ Il est très beau. Et drôle!” _ You were right -- he is very handsome. And funny!

If looks could kill, Laszlo would smite Julie Valcourt where she stands. As it is -- cheeks burning -- he finds himself thanking God for John Moore’s inherent laziness; despite the best efforts of his tutors, and despite Laszlo’s own dogged attempts throughout university, the man had never held onto a word of foreign language.

“ _Attention à tes manières, Julie_ ,” he drawls, letting her catch the hint of a bite in his words as they circle in the gallery; taking in the milling crowds, the canvases, the marbled figures frozen in their graceful gestures. Mind your manners.  
  
John casts his gaze helplessly between them, uncertain. _You were right, my dear..._ “You’ll have to forgive me, Miss -- _Julie_ \-- I’m afraid I don’t follow.” This much, at least, is true. The smile he etches into his features is a painful one; embarrassed, half a grimace. “I never had the head for languages.” A lie. He understood well enough. _He is very handsome -- and funny._ Laszlo had written of him with _great fondness_. And what was that supposed to mean?

“My apologies.” Julie leads them deeper into the galleries, past the throngs of onlookers, between the art students with their easels and their drawing kits engrossed in their work. “Come -- I’ll show you all the masterpieces. And you must tell me all about your journey.”

She leads them through the labyrinthe of the ground level, every inch of the place a feast for the eyes, and John finds himself slowing, trailing behind Laszlo and Julie as they talk -- offering snatches of conversation as he lingers over the sculptures.

“You must visit the beaches now that winter has passed us,” Julie urges. “The coastline of Normandy is not far -- only a few hours -- and the water is  _ beautiful _ .”

And John cannot help but smile, watching as Laszlo leans in nose-to-nose with a weathered bust of one demigod or another, proclaiming gravely “I believe I have had enough of the sea for now.” 

John wanders between the statues with their carved features stern and unseeing, his attention drifting back again and again to Laszlo -- curious and dark-eyed, tilting his head back to take in the full magnitude of a glowing, white marble figure. And it is marvelous, stone shaped into soft flesh, but as much as John lingers over the craftsmanship, the finite detailing of fingers and veins and musculature in motion, he finds himself focused all over again on Laszlo. On the glitter in his eye, the bird-like tilt of his head, the quirk of his wide mouth.

“Oh,  _ mes chéries _ , you have to experience the real Paris,” Julie insists as they wander, circling the perimeter of the gallery. “You mustn’t -- you can’t float through this city as simple tourists, I won’t let you.”

Laszlo studies each piece with his keen, glittering eyes. Cuts sideways glances at John and offers precise commentary, asks thoughtful questions. And John cannot look away, can barely concentrate on the detail-work depicting heroes and gods on urns, when Laszlo is wandering circles among the artworks looking vivid and brilliant and more alive than he has since before the nightmare of Japheth Dury.

“And how is New York?” Julie, who has each sculpture and amphora and artifact memorized -- knows each like an old friend -- instead observes John and Laszlo with soft eyes. Intrigued. “I cannot say I miss it, but it’s been so long since I left  and you hardly provide enough news for me in your letters,  _ Docteur _ .”

New York.

The city they have left behind; the dark shadow they had sought respite from. Japheth Dury and the slums breeding poverty and crime and hurt. The Four Hundred sat upon their gilded hills, untouchable. Crooked cops and wicked men and never enough decency to make a difference. Not really.

“New York is as she always is,” Laszlo says. The words are heavy -- impossibly tired. “If it’s society gossip you are looking for, you will have to ask John.” And here his smile, a flicker though it is, is deeply genuine.

John picks up the thread, does his best to fill her in on the snatches of gossip, the scandals and soirees coloring the society column. McKinley’s election, the opening of the Aquarium in Castle Garden, J.P. Morgan’s endless rotation of increasingly youthful ‘nieces’, the Bradley-Martin Ball at the Waldorf.

“And this business with the boy-killer, my God!” Julie interjects and then, grimacing, darts a quick hazel glance around the gallery -- her words far too loud. “There are serial murderers dismembering innocents in New York and ghosts committing murders in our Opera house, what next? The world is going mad.”

“No,” Laszlo murmurs, drawing away from his examination of a cherubic child, frozen in stone. “The world is reacting.”

It is the turn of the century; industry exploding across the world, the cities teeming with new ideas immigrating from all corners of the world, the old forced to bend before the new. Laszlo has seen the tensions rising, has felt the crush of pressure in New York -- the Four Hundred and the old class braced against the rising tide of the new world. 

And then, realizing exactly what Julie has said, he echoes flatly; “ _ ghosts _ .”

Julie shrugs, nonchalant. “So goes the rumor. Adela heard it from one of the girls in the  _ ballet corps _ , and it was in the papers too -- one of the stagehands was found dead, a hanging, and they are all claiming it is the Opera Ghost.” 

“But,” John finds himself chuckling nervously, all too aware of the cold that prickles at the nape of his neck, the ice that frosts in his blood. Across an ocean, and there are still monsters -- still dreadful things... “That’s absurd. There’s no such thing as ghosts -- surely someone has given a rational explanation for what happened.”

“A man who hangs himself and can make the rope disappear?” Julie lays this bit of information before them with a quirk of her eyebrows. “I suppose. After all, ballerinas are excitable creatures, they are prone to flights of dramatics. And it is all excitement of late, I tell you this -- with the retirement of the old manager and Monsieurs  Moncharmin and Richard taking over now.” And she seizes Laszlo’s good hand, her bright face in raptures. “Oh, it’s a pity you didn’t arrive sooner -- they had this little Swede, entirely unknown, plucked from the ballet corps, singing in Carlotta’s place! What a  _ coup _ ! Her voice, though --  _ Bon Docteur _ , it was ethereal. Like nothing I have ever heard before.”

Laszlo, amused and intrigued -- always intrigued -- indulges her enthusiasm with a narrow smile, asking  “and does this unknown Swede have a name?”

A frown, considering, and then Julie plucks the name from the ether. “Daae. Yes, she is the daughter of that violinist -- Gustave Daae.” She leads them once more into the depths of the gallery, their footsteps tracking a staccato across the pale tiles. “A pity, I hear they have stuck her back among the ballerinas, now that Carlotta has recovered from her illness. Still -- you will have to attend, it is a chance to hear the Spanish Diva herself sing.”

The Spanish Diva. Even John -- no great patron of the theater -- is familiar with  _ La  _ Carlotta and the technical perfection of her soaring, precisely-executed soprano.

Ensconced in among the Greeks, they wander, speaking softly breaking away from one another and returning after examining each wonder and curiosity up close. And then Julie stops, stills before sinuous, broken-armed figure, her face lit with a tenderness. A warmth like looking upon a long-separated lover.

“This is my favorite piece,” Julie tells them softly, her vowels curling. The room is quiet, empty. Unseeing eyes seem to meet their gaze, looking down a patrician nose. The crook of a knee, curve of a hip. “ _ Aphrodite.  _ She was discovered in 1820 on Melos in the south-western Cyclades. Gifted to Louis XVIII by the Marquis de Rivière, then brought here to be viewed in all her glory.” And she glances up at John, asks with as much pride as though she were the one to free this Venus from the marble herself “she is beautiful, yes?”

John, fool that he is, has let his focus drift back toward Laszlo who lingers in the soft light, drawn to the intricacies of the bust recessed into the wall beyond  _ Aphrodite _ . Always curious -- always hungry to look closer, to see the detail. Intent on his study, with furrowed brows and the thoughtful pout to his lower lip, and John -- unthinking, idiot -- says “yes. He is.”

He does not catch the way Julie’s eyebrows raise ever so faintly, the quirk of her mouth that says her suspicions are confirmed. If he had, it might put the fear of God into him, to have found Sara Howard’s match in a redheaded Frenchwoman -- a notion Laszlo had already explored, with trepidation, at length. Heaven forbid the two women should ever meet, had been the alienist’s conclusion, for not even the strongest of men would have been safe then.

But Julie only turns her eyes back to  _ Aphrodite _ , lets herself muse aloud. “I always wonder -- who was the model?” She paces a few steps around the sculpture, considering. “She has been immortalized, and carved with such care.” And here she catches John’s distant gaze, peering around  _ Aphrodite _ ’s bent knee. “Whoever she was, the sculptor must have loved her very much.”

“Yes.” John blinks, drawn from his reverie. “Yes. I suppose he must.”

“You assume the sculptor was a man.”

“Well. I...” And John fumbles, wrong-footed. He has known Sara long enough to know that there is no good answer. “It’s only natural -- am I wrong to assume so?” 

Laszlo chooses this moment to rejoin them, naturally, his eyes twinkling with quiet mirth at John’s expense. His presence is warm, solid and certain at John’s side.

“Not as such.” Julie circles the sculpture again, considering it now not with the eyes of a lover, but the eyes of an artist -- the critical analysis of a fellow sculptor. “She was likely carved by Alexandros of Antioch -- but who is to say that a woman cannot love a woman enough to capture her likeness forever in marble? Or a man love a man?”

The look she levels at John is dangerously pointed.

He nearly chokes. Beside him, Laszlo shifts uneasily, a quiet rustling of fabric as he rolls his shoulders, resettles himself.

Julie spreads her hands, nonchalant. There is no one to overhear them. “This is Paris, John Moore -- such things are not so unspeakable here.” 

Paris. The city of light.

Of love.

A city of eccentrics and artists and bohemians -- such things as Julie Valcourt implied were not so free and flaunted, but still. Less a secret, less a dangerous, back-alley transgression than they might have been in other cities.

“That is why I left New York,” Julie confides with a gleam in her hazel eyes. “For love of art and beautiful women.”

“Well,” John shakes himself, looking helplessly around the gallery as he gathers his composure. At the far end of the empty room there is quiet laughter, two couples arm-in-arm strolling through. John lingers on them as he speaks, tracking their promenade through the gallery. “I will not argue the allure of the women of Paris with you, but I do feel myself honor-bound to defend the beauty of New York’s ladies.”

“I’m sure you do, John,” Laszlo’s reply is clipped, his tone scathing. “Seeing as you made your way through many of their beds on one night or another.” He does not look at John, his mouth ironed into a thin, cruel line.

Julie stares, stricken.

“For chrissakes, Kreizler.” Heat rises in John’s face, boils in his blood -- shocked, embarrassed. Laszlo might have reached out and backhanded him across the face and it would have been less astonishing. “Do you ever listen to yourself speak?” 

He does. He does and he wishes he could take it back the moment the vicious, vindictive words have flown from his lips, but Laszlo Kreizler is all sharpness and wounds and childishness and he wants  _ to  _ wound. Wants to be cruel. “I fear that, despite your flirting, you will find no such interest from Madmoiselle Valcourt -- though this is not the result of any personal fault of yours.” When he does risk looking John in the eye, his face has been rearranged, made impassive -- the cold, calculating mask that John so hates to see. “Rather, simply the fact that you are a man.”

“My God,” John fumes, the anger shaking in his fists, the hurt blooming red and ugly in his chest “for all that you go around professing to know the inner workings of the human mind, you really have no idea how to talk to another person, do you?” 

He is right, and the words strangle and die on Laszlo’s lips.

“Not an  _ ounce  _ of humanity in you, Laszlo.”

And -- exasperated, furious -- John turns on his heel, stalking off into the Parthenon Room. Julie watches him go, silent, wide-eyed.

Laszlo thinks,  _ he is right. _

He bows his head. Curls his fists -- feels the weak, atrophied tendons of his right hand tremble. Useless. Unable even to manage this; a simple fist. And there is a storm in him, a great ugly thing that seethes and crackles and threatens. He itches for blood, digs his nails into his palm until he feels the bite, the sting -- until he feels  _ anything _ that isn’t the roaring wretchedness of his own soul taunting him.

“That was a  _ shambles _ ,  _ Bon Docteur _ .” Julie approaches cautiously, each slow footfall a metronomic  _ click _ in counterpoint to the racing of Laszlo’s pulse. “You truly are a bastard, Laszlo Kreizler.” But she says it softly. She, the only soul who perhaps might know the reason why. “He was hardly flirting with me.”

The Good Doctor, the brilliant alienist, suddenly seems very small, very fragile. He stands limply, arms hanging at his sides, head bent low. Unmoored in the middle of the  _ salle _ , unseeing. Saying nothing.

Julie turns away, offers him the privacy to compose himself as she feigns scrutiny of  _ Aphrodite _ and the stone-drape of her skirts. “ _ Lui as-tu déjà parlé _ ?” The question she tosses over her shoulder, offhand. Have you spoken to him?

Laszlo’s response is immediate. “ _ Non _ .” And though he is still shaken, still ragged around the edges, he straightens himself, fixes her with a stern look. “ _ Je ne l'ai pas fait. Et je ne le ferai pas _ .” I have not. And I will not do it. 

There is no speaking of this. Not to John. He does not have the strength in him for such things, does not have nearly enough courage.

Julie sighs. “ _ Tu devrais, mon Bon Docteur _ .” And, rolling her head to meet his burning, obstinate look, she lifts her eyebrows, unaffected. “I think you will find love less unlikely than you believe it to be. But --” a shrug “-- what do I know, after all? Only what you have taught me.” She tucks her arm through Laszlo’s, ignores the way his whole body goes rigid -- less pliable, she thinks, than even the stone and plaster that she molds. “Come, Mister Moore will not have gone far.”

She is right; John paces in the depths of the gallery, hands shoved into the pockets of his trousers. He studies the detailing of a squatting, bulbous amphora, a frown low and heavy on his brow.

Julie’s hand is small and warm in the crook of Laszlo’s elbow, patting a brief reassurance before she slips away in a rustle of silk -- leaving Laszlo stranded in the empty floorspace, his eyes locked on John’s trim shoulders.

He risks a step, and then another. Draws up alongside John before the amphora on its pedestal. And there is an apology that needs saying, ugly words between them that require penance, but he finds himself studying the imagery of the piece and saying “it is a depiction of the Grecian notions of an underworld -- Hades. Neither a heaven nor a hell, entirely.” 

John grunts.

“There were five rivers they believed to converge on a great marsh at the center of this after-world.” Laszlo dares to risk a sideways glance up at John, the music of his voice stumbling as he implores the man to listen, to  _ understand _ . “One of these rivers, Lethe, was known as t he  _ ameles potamos _ . The river of unmindfulness. When you drank from it, your memories were erased entirely.”

And John does understand, hears the meaning clearly in Laszlo’s words. It is too much to expect an apology -- Laszlo’s pride will only bend so far. But he understands. 

Let this be struck from memory, forgive me.

And John will; somehow, he will always find it in himself to forgive Laszlo any trespass. Because this, too, he understands -- the nature of Laszlo Kreizler, and the nature of his love for the man with all his arrogance and anguish and tenaciousness.

“Sometimes, Laszlo…” John shakes his head. Sighs. Too many ways to complete that thought -- none of them good.

Laszlo, shamefaced as he is, still cringes from a forthright apology -- from the truths it might draw too close to the light. “This ghost Julie mentioned, at the Palais Garnier…”

“Oh no.” The argument is forgotten. John turns on Laszlo then with a gleam in his eye, he has known the man too long, knows him too well -- can see clearly where this line of thought leads and it must be derailed. “Don’t even dwell on it, Kreizler -- you’re a man of science, surely you don’t believe there’s a  _ ghost _ terrorizing the opera house? That’s madness.”

Laszlo shrugs, an uneven roll of his shoulders. Some of the dreadful weight, the vice-like tightness, eases from around his heart. “The mind may seek an unnatural explanation where natural ones may not appear to suffice. I do not doubt that the nature of this ghost is far from supernatural, but --”

“ _ But _ , nothing,” John interjects. “We left one specter in New York, Laszlo I didn’t come here to chase after another one.”

“One night at the opera will not do us any harm.”

“ _ Laszlo _ .”

“You did promise,” Laszlo reminds him, “after all.” There is a wicked, brilliant gleam in his ochre eyes. And,  _ oh _ , John has missed this -- Laszlo restored and biting, with his one-track mind and his teeth sunk into some new, impossible challenge.

_ Tell him he can’t _ , John had told Teddy once during their Harvard days, when Laszlo had been twice as mad and three times as fierce.  _ Tell him he can’t and he will see it done out of sheer willfulness. _

Sensing the worst to be behind them, Julie -- lingering discreetly -- takes the opportunity to rejoin them, interjecting with all her boisterousness “ _ gentlemen _ , I guarantee you that urn is not so interesting. Come -- we wil visit the first floor.” And she turns her attention again to John, eager to pick the brain of a fellow artist. “Laszlo has written that sometimes you paint, John? The Delacroix’s are particularly marvelous. But, then, he is French -- I am biased.”

And John finds himself laughing, drawn along, the last of the frustration slipping away. Julie is bright and full of good humor, with an eye for capturing the essence and movement of a figure in art. And Laszlo is quieter, subdued, offering little commentary but drinking in the pair of them with his jasper eyes alight and his soft face fond.

John shifts too close to him every so often, bumps Laszlo’s shoulder to reassure him that all is forgiven. Lingers over the faint touches -- his hand on the small of Laszlo’s back, fingers cupped around an elbow to steer him through the galleries, Laszlo’s brief grip on his wrist to draw his attention. 

He loves Laszlo Kreizler.

He loves him and it is impossible for so many reasons and it isn’t the slightest bit fair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a hot mess of infodumping and over-researching. Sorry folks. 
> 
> Also, the only French I know is how to say "I don't speak French" so, this is all Google Translate and I expect it is all likely wrong.


	4. Chapter 4

There exists an uneasy truce between them in the following days; the tension returns to the stiff line of Laszlo’s spine, the uncertainty lingering in John’s words. Three times, he catches himself with the questions poised on his lips: what had Miss Valcourt -- Julie -- meant?

_ Tu avais raison. _

You were right.

_ Il est très beau. Et drôle! _

He is very handsome. And funny!

John catches the question between his teeth, grinds it into nothing each time. There is no point in asking -- too much to risk when he knows how easily Laszlo will suss out the underlying fragile hope. His friendship, bruising though it may be, will be enough.

The Seine glitters in the sunlight when they venture out along the cobbled streets. The sky a clear and brilliant blue when they rise above the cityscape to walk the wrought-iron promenade around the  _ Tour Eiffel _ , looking out over the green expanse of  _ Champs-de Mars _ from within the confines of the tower’s restaurant.

In these moments -- the slow circuit through the heavens, the wanderings through the city streets -- John considers uselessly how it would feel, the warm weight of Laszlo’s hand in his own, the softness of his mouth.  _ Here _ , he thinks, when Laszlo is framed against the cloudless sky with the wind ruffling his hair.  _ I should kiss him, right here _ .

Foolhardy, dangerous thoughts.

He does not notice the way Laszlo’s eyes linger -- the strange brightness there, the way he watches John, keen and quiet. Misses the faintest of smiles, the awkward, warm way that tenderness sits on Laszlo’s face.

There is a note left at the concierge, delivered to their door, and Laszlo recognizes instantly the whirling penmanship of Madmoiselle Valcourt. He reads it silently, lingering at the door, and John twists around on the loveseat, tapping ash from the tip of his cigarette.

“Well,” John prompts. “What is it?”

“From Julie.” Laszlo scans the words again, his mouth pinched tight in contemplation. “She sends her regards and tickets to the Garnier. She is unable to attend and hopes that her box will not go to waste.” 

What Laszlo does not add is the post-script, couched in clever words. 

_ Speak. Tell him. _

Laszlo passes the pair of tickets to John for inspection, tucking Julie’s missive away in the inner pocket of his waistcoat. “I know you are no great patron of the opera, but --” the appeal is awkward, uncertain. He glances at John and just as quickly his deep brown eyes flicker away again. “It is  _ Faust _ . La Carlotta will be singing Margarita and Carolus Fonta as Doctor Faustus.”

The unspoken question is obvious.

“Hmm.” The corners of John’s eyes crinkle wonderfully, his smile fond, and Laszlo’s heart stumbles -- a glancing blow off his ribs. “I suppose we’ll have to dust off our evening-wear.”

He would say anything, John thinks -- knows -- if it would always earn him such a smile. Laszlo's ochre eyes gleam, his whole face scrunched up with a brilliant grin.

* * *

 

There is a strange air to the Palais Garnier.

The grand foyer is awash in the light of a thousand golden candle-lights gleaming from the chandeliers, the murals of cherubim and nymphs vivid with color. The corridors are dense with patrons done out in their evening finery -- and everyone whispering, conspiring with uneasy, curious eyes.

John lingers close at Laszlo’s right side, an unthinking automatic buffer between the shifting crowd and Laszlo’s sore, wasted arm. And Laszlo is too distracted, too keen on listening for snatches of dialogue, on observing the peculiarities of the opera’s patrons tonight and the whispers of “conspiracy”, “a plot by the Daae girl”, and “-- keeping an eye out for the enemies of Carlotta.” Eventually, John rests his hand at the small of his back, guiding the alienist along with an easy, gentle nudge.

They find themselves in the 3rd Loges de Face, a plush box of red velvet seats with a view of the sprawling ampitheatre, the stage shrouded and waiting.

Laszlo fidgets in his seat, umber eyes scanning in all directions; keen and curious. John watches as he draws out his opera glasses, studying the stage, the moving heads of their fellow theater-goers below, stops himself just short of leaning out over the baulstrade to analyze.

“What  _ are  _ you looking at?” John demands, confounded, only to frown sharply. “Don’t tell me you’re still hung up on that damned ghost story.”

A harrumph from Laszlo, his chin lifting in defiance. “You cannot deny that it is intriguing.”

“I can and I will deny it, Laszlo.” Equal parts exasperated and amused by Laszlo’s eternal tenacity, John fixes him with a look. “There are no such things as ghosts.”

“Then you and I are in agreement on that much,” Laszlo hums, unruffled. “I do not presume that we are dealing with a phantasm, John.” His eyes slide to John, quiet and serious. “All supernatural phenomena can be found to be grounded somehow in reality.”

John folds his arms with an unimpressed grumble, settling in as the orchestra strikes the first toneless chord.

“ _ Vain _ !” The stage lights find Doctor Faustus on stage, wringing his hands in torment. “ _ In vain do I call, through my vigil weary, On creation and its Lord! Never reply will break the silence dreary! No sign! No single word! _ ”

They are plunged into the world of Faust -- the orchestra snarling, trilling, soaring. Mephistophles prowls, Faustus bargains, Siebel pines adoringly. And all of John’s attention is focused on Laszlo at his side; entranced.

Almost unconsciously, Laszlo’s good hand twitches, silently conducting the orchestra below. Lost to the music. John longs to reach across and catch the long, slender fingers in his own.

The scenes pass in a whirl of ballerinas and heavy velvet curtains. In the interim silence curious murmurs rustle through the theater; friends of La Carlotta scattered through the boxes in a show of solidarity. There had been threatening letters sent, rumors swirled that they had come from the little Swedish soprano -- Christine Daae.

Amid the revelry on stage, Carlotta appears. She strolls languidly, gracefully, from stage left -- noble-faced and statuesque -- to catch the attention of Doctor Faustus. " _No, my lord, not a lady am I,_ ” her clear soprano rings with technical perfection. “ _Nor yet a beauty, And do not need an arm to help me on my way_." 

Margarita charms Faustus on stage. 

The curtain rises on Margarita’s garden. In the half-shadows from the spotlights, Laszlo risks stealing a fond glance at John -- the world seems softer, no longer tipped of the axis, spiraling meaninglessly. This is how things should be; John and Laszlo close, comfortable.

He does not expect the softness in John’s golden eyes, startles to find himself the subject of such fond study. Shocked, shy warmth burns high on his cheeks.

_ Impossible. _

John smiles. A faint, tender sort of smile to break Laszlo’s heart.

In the garden below, Carlotta sings from her bower " _ gentle flow'rs in the dew, Be message from me _ ..."

And from the little blonde cast as Siébel comes the reply, her voice hoarse, the tone pitching wildly. " _ Gentle flow'rs, lie ye there And tell her from me _ ..." 

A ripple of surprise murmurs through the audience. This is the newly infamous Christine Daae, who had been a triumph. The ballerina who had sung like an angel. Could it be? Some sort of fluke -- she sings like the squeak of a rusted hinge.

La Carlotta’s Margarita sighs and swoons. " _ Oh, how strange! Like a spell does the evening bind me! And a deep languid charm I feel without alarm With its melody enwind me And all my heart subdue _ … CO-ACK!"

Silence.

Laszlo sits up straighter, frowning. 

A few shocked whispers among the gallery. Did they really hear --? Could they have imagined --? What a terrible sound...

Unmoored in the center stage, Carlotta falters, casting about for some sort of answer. Had that horrible sound burst from her own throat? She hesitates. Squares her shoulders. Bolsters herself and begins again from the beginning in a ringing, clear voice. " _ I feel without alarm _ ..." But there is alarm written all across her painted features, her voice starting to quaver. " _ I feel without alarm _ …  _ I feel without alarm _ \-- co-ack!” 

The noise in the gallery rises, amazed and horrified at the catastrophe unfolding.

Still Carlotta tries to soldier through, a hand fluttering at her throat. “ _ With its melody enwind me _ \-- co-ack!  _ And all my heart sub _ \-- co-ack!"

And as the crowd swells with noice, a voice from everywhere and nowhere rises clear above the din. “ _ She is singing tonight to bring the chandelier down! _ ”

A terrible, horrified look passes between John and Laszlo.

“What?”

“ _ Oh no _ ...”

Laszlo is on his feet in an instant, craning out over the edge of the balcony. The chandelier -- seven tons of bronze and crystal -- sways wildly. The chains groan, the crystals rattle. And then it plummets, crashes down in the middle of the ampitheatre in a chorus of screams and shattering glass.

The theater erupts into chaos.

“Did you see?!” Laszlo whirls away from the madhouse of screaming and scrambling below, stricken. All the color has gone from his face. “How many wounded do you think?” He is wild-eyed, frantic, white-knuckling the bannister.

John has never seen him look so terrified. So completely, horribly discomposed.

“I don’t know,” John manages to stammer. Breathless. Did they really just see --? “ _ My God _ , I don’t know…”

Laszlo is already spinning away, racing from their box -- and he looks like he might be sick. John, too stunned to command his limbs to move, hears Laszlo’s voice sharp and desperate in the corridor. “I’m a doctor!  _ Je suis un médecin _ !” 

A catastrophe.

His hand shake when he grips the arms of the seat. His knees wobble, gone to jelly with the rush of adrenaline and terror slurrying through his veins. John levers himself upright, stumbling into the fray -- a crush of elbows and tripped-over skirts and senseless hysteria.

A young woman stumbles. John catches her by the arm, guiding her through the chaos toward the staircase. 

Where is Laszlo?

He is lost somewhere in the madness, certainly forging his way into the thick of it. John sees the terrified, unhinged look in Laszlo’s eyes when the chandelier had fallen in his mind’s eye. He has to find him.

Swept down the stairs, John finds himself in the throng of weeping, frightened theater-goers. He hauls a gentleman up from the floor before he can be trampled. Catches an elbow in the ribs. Ushers a wizened old woman who looks too much like his grandmother and keeps a death-grip on his arm to relative safety.

His pulse beats a noisy blood-rush in his ears.  _ Laszlo. Laszlo. Laszlo _ .

Someone screams. 

In the grand foyer, there is not an inch of space -- everywhere, frightened, shocked people. Ballerinas in their thin costumes shiver and weep.

_ Laszlo?  _

No -- too old. That one too narrow in the shoulders.

_ Where have you gone? _

John pushes his way through the crowds, muttering apologies. 

“ _ Aidez-moi! Nous avons besoin d'un docteur! _ ”

And there -- amid the flotsam and jetsam of patrons holding bloodied handkerchiefs, cut by broken glass, half-trampled and faint with terror -- is Laszlo. 

Elbow-deep in the thick of it, the alienist’s jacket has disappeared, his white waistcoat and shirt stained with blood. His unfashionable hair curls at the edges, sweaty and flopping across his brow. He wipes blood from the face of a wide-eyed, sobbing girl, murmuring low and gentle words of reassurance.

“ _ Docteur Kreizler, votre aide, s'il vous plaît? _ ”

Laszlo’s shoulders jerk, startled by the address. He turns to find the man in question, a French physician fashioning a sling for a broken arm.

His eyes are haunted.

“ _ Oui _ .” Laszlo’s voice is hoarse, rough around the edges. “ _ De quoi avez-vous besoin _ ?” He crouches beside the physician. Cradles the gentleman’s broken arm, steadying the limb as the sling is tied off. 

As he stands, searching blindly for the next patient -- the next problem to solve, all he  _ can  _ do -- John gasps out “ _ Laszlo _ ” dizzy with relief and shocked at the sight of him. And the last few yards of distance between them disappear, John carried across the floor in a rush of desperation.

He catches Laszlo’s sweaty, haggard face between his hands. Kisses him hard and quick -- a startling, unromantic crush of lips and frantic, panicked relief. Laszlo tastes of salt, of blood, and John thinks only  _ oh, thank God _ and then  _ oh sweet Christ. Oh God. _

What has he done?

Laszlo, glassy-eyed, staggers when John lets him go. His tongue darts out, licking the taste of John from his lips -- but he hardly seems to register the kiss. “John.” His name is a croak, raw-sounding in Laszlo’s throat. 

There is too much. Too much catastrophe and pain and senseless horror singing in Laszlo’s bones, and he doesn’t know how to silence it. How to stop the hollow, wretched screaming of his nerves. 

He feels wretched. Wrecked. He feels like dying. “John, this is…”

“I know.” John strokes the backs of his knuckles against Laszlo’s damp, clammy cheek. “Laszlo, it’s a terrible accident.”

Staring around them at the awful triage, Laszlo swallows hard. “So many…” He shakes his head, scooped-out and left hollow. There is no strength left in him anymore. “They ran rough-shod over one another -- trampled their friends, their husbands and wives… Such chaos.”

“I know,” John soothes, stroking his hands down Laszlo’s arms. “I know, Laszlo. Please, come away from here.” And he catches Laszlo’s wrist, tries to draw him away. The fractures run deep and terrible through Laszlo’s soul and he will dash himself to smithereens in the opera house foyer if he continues.

“I have to help.” Laszlo struggles, wrenches himself from John’s grip. “I must… I -- John, let me go!”

“You’ve done enough.” John seizes him, crushes Laszlo in his arms feeling the wild, frenetic racing of his heart. He squeezes Laszlo as he struggles, strokes his hair and pours out every once of love and tenderness in him, heart breaking.  _ I’m sorry, my love. I’m sorry -- I know. _ “Laszlo,  _ for God’s sake _ \-- you’ve done enough.”

Laszlo stills, the whites of his eyes wide and wild, unable to face John directly.

He might be sick.

“Come with me.” John speaks softly, terribly gentle as Laszlo trembles in his arms. All the light has gone from his eyes -- the alienist retreating far into himself. “Come on,” John coaxes, guiding him away. “It’s going to be all right, Laszlo.”

The night air is a cool relief against their skin, chilling the sticky fear-sweat. The Rue Scribe is littered with a few idle cabs hoping for a fare and John bundles Laszlo into the nearest carriage, shrugging out of his own suit coat.

“Here.” He drapes the coat around Laszlo’s shoulders. Does not say  _ to hide the blood _ . Numb, Laszlo acquiesces.

They travel in silence, clattering over the uneven cobblestones. John slips Laszlo’s fingers between his own, traces his thumb over the ridges of his white knuckles.

Somehow, they make it back to  _ Le Meurice _ . Somehow, John manages to pay the fare with a handful of uncounted bills, to guide Laszlo -- unresponsive, pliant -- through the foyer and toward the safety of their room. 

He fumbles at the door, searching for his key.

Laszlo produces it from within the pocket of the borrow suit coat, speaks at last in a shattered, whispering voice. “It was not enough, John. It is never enough.”

“Don’t --” John stills, the key halfway in the lock. “Laszlo, you can’t think that.”

Despondent, trembling with the aftershocks of adrenaline, fists balled in frustration, Laszlo murmurs “what is context -- theory, education -- against random chaos? I fear…” His eyes wander, seeking answers from the ceiling, the carpeting beneath their boots. He does not dare look at John. “The darkness is endless, John, and I do not have even the light of a match by which to see.” 

And what is John meant to say to that?


	5. Chapter 5

When they are locked safely away behind the hotel doors -- where the outside world cannot intrude -- John turns slowly to look Laszlo up and down, considering silently where they will go from here. How much comfort will be allowed? How much care? Will Laszlo, despondent and hurting, shove him off and disappear to lick his wounds in private?

The glow of the incandescent lamps reveals catastrophe.

Laszlo stands adrift, barely two steps beyond the foyer. Bloodied, hollow-eyed, soaked in sweat; only sheer bloody-mindedness to keep him from sinking to a heap on the floor. And, on his face, the same frightful, shattered look he had worn when John had scrambled up after him onto the reservoir roof. Had found him slumped and defeated, with Japheth Dury's head cradled in his lap.

And, just as he had then, John will do what he can to catch Laszlo when he falls, to patch the worst of the cracks back together.

Silent, steady, John takes Laszlo by the hand. Draws him through their hotel suite like a dream. Laszlo -- trailing in his wake -- hesitates when John guides him to the bathroom, leaves him silent and swaying on his feet while he sets the claw-footed bathtub to filling.

He does not know how to do this.

John has always been kind.  _ Good _ . Has afforded Laszlo more patience and sure friendship than he could ever deserve. But he has never done this; has never  _ taken care of _ Laszlo, has never held him like he is some fragile, precious thing or offered him such gentleness. It has not been their way.

But now John is here, is testing the warmth of the bathwater with his hand like it should  _ matter _ whether it is too hot -- whether it matters if it scalds the skin from Laszlo’s bones or chills him through -- and Laszlo does not deserve it. Doesn’t know how to accept it.

John offers anyway.

“Here.” He reaches for Laszlo, grasps at air when the alienist flinches backward. Terrifying, to find such a measure of gentleness when he has seen the whole spectrum of brutality in the world. “Let me.”

Laszlo does not have it in him to protest. 

John sinks to his knees on the cool marble and cups the back of his calf, steadying Laszlo as he draws off his boots and socks one-by-one. And, when John rises to his feet, when his fingers find their way to the limp bowtie at Laszlo’s throat -- the buttons of his bloodied shirt -- Laszlo cringes, tries to draw away before John can peel back the last of his fragile layers, leave him ruined and exposed and with nothing left to keep him from going to pieces.

But John knows how to handle Laszlo Kreizler, and he will never let him break.

He coaxes Laszlo from his shirt, does not flinch from the sight of the wasted right arm that hangs crooked, tucked into Laszlo’s side. 

And Laszlo closes his eyes, swallows hard -- the column of his throat straining -- when careful hands find their way to the fastenings of his trousers. But John does not trouble himself now with propriety, with what ifs and maybe loves.

He does not allow his eyes to linger. Still, there is no helping the glimpses; the scatters of freckles, the dustings of hair, the curve of a buttock when he lays a hand against the heated small of Laszlo’s back to guide him into the bath.

The warm water rises to swallow him up, lapping at his sternum, and Laszlo -- aching, empty -- draws his knees up to his chest. A pair of knobby white mountains amid the sea of bathwater.

Dipping into the water with a cloth, John smooths over the high curve of Laszlo’s tense shoulders. Laszlo flinches at the touch.

“John, there is no need --”

“Just once, Laszlo.” John cuts him off, his voice gone hard around the edges and wobbling dangerously in the middle. “Just once let someone care for you.” 

And Laszlo understands; this is not just for his own sake. 

He acquiesces with ill grace -- John would expect nothing less -- but it is still a concession. Just the faintest bending of the proud, held-taut spine. The dark, troubled look still lingers in his eyes, but the frown begins to ease between his brows.

John cradles the back of Laszlo’s skull and scrubs the sweat and dust and blood from his face, sluices water like a baptism over his head. Takes Laszlo’s hands one-by-one in his own to clean the blood from his nail beds, the creases of his palms. And Laszlo is all too aware of his own nakedness, of the span of his skin vulnerable and weak and revealed to John’s tender scrutiny. It is unbearable.

And it will break his heart in the end, all of John’s gentle kindness. 

The unfairness of it all -- of loving John who still, after everything, treats him with such tenderness but could not ever reciprocate. Of the fear and anguish that guard the truth on Laszlo’s tongue and keep him silent. And, as comforting as it is -- as much as John’s quiet presence and gentle hands are a balm for his soul -- Laszlo cannot bear it a moment longer. It only leaves him feeling more wretched, more useless. 

_ Betrüger _ . A perfect little imposter pretending to impose order on the chaos of the world -- does not deserve to be treated like some precious thing.

“You are not my nursemaid, John.” 

John’s hand stills. “I never said --”

“I am not a child nor an invalid.” He does not look at John. Is too tired to blunt the sharpness of his words, to disguise the bitterness that tinges his voice.  “I do not need you to  _ mind  _ me.”

“I know that” John insists, shoulders sagging. And he is still too gentle -- just verging on exasperated -- and Laszlo wants him angry. Unkind.  _ Gone _ . “I only meant to --”

“To  _ help _ . Yes.” And Laszlo is acutely aware of himself, his own wretchedness. Of the cruelty he wraps around himself like a shroud -- a defense against his own frightening vulnerability. He sneers. “I don’t need your help.”

“No, you don’t do you?” John’s face twists. Some broken, furious emotion. And he stands, throwing down the cloth with a splash, offering one final parting shot. “There’s blood in your beard.”

He does not slam the bathroom door, but it is a near thing.

Burning with shame, with anguish and anger, Laszlo sinks miserably down into the bath until the water laps at his chin, cooling fast. He had wanted -- and instead he had burned it all to ashes. Again.  _ Foolish _ . Too afraid. Too vulnerable. Easier to cut John to pieces on the brutal shards of Laszlo’s defenses than to let him slip past and find the wreckage beyond.

And the knowledge of it -- his own uselessness, his cowardice, his  _ damage --  _ it stings, burns in him like a poison; slurrying his veins, squeezing around his thundering heart. Like a compulsion, his strong left hand circles the wasted circumference of his forearm, blunt nails carving pinpoints of bright pain.

It does nothing to still the keen pang of sorrow in his heart.

In his own suite, John storms about -- impotent, reduced to muttering frustrated recriminations of Laszlo and his absurd behavior. Each futile gesture, slamming the curtains, throwing back the bed covers, bleeds the anger from him slowly. Leaves him simply sad, hollowed-out and weary.

How is it that the two of them always end up here? Warring with one another -- it is like they are speaking entirely different languages and occasionally the words come together, on the cusp of meaning, and then fly apart again.

John has closed himself in the bedroom, cut himself off from Laszlo and the rest of the suite, and he is surprised when the door swings open to admit a shaft of dim light, broken by Laszlo’s guilty silhouette.

He is still dripping wet -- soggy and bedraggled and holding the brocade dressing gown tightly around himself as though the quilted fabric will protect him from whatever happens next. He seems smaller like this, more delicate than John could ever recall seeing him before, but for all the uncertainty in the line of his shoulders, Laszlo’s eyes are luminious. Solemn.

The admission falls quietly into the silence between them. “I am a fool.”

John studies him for a long moment -- fond in spite of himself. “You’re among good company.” 

This time, Laszlo will not let it end so easily. Perhaps they understand each other well enough that words are unnecessary, but he has decided this needs to be said. The apology, dredged up from deep within himself, is murmured to the moonlight streaming through the window. “I… well. John, I fear I owe you an apology. My behavior has been…” And he struggles with the words, fighting to explain the turmoil that has tied him into knots, the storm encroaching on the edges of his world. “Things are… uncertain, now.” The cupid’s bow of his mouth thins; a tight, unhappy grimace. I do not see as clearly as I thought I did. Before Japheth.” 

John watches as the fingers of his left hand trace the length of his right forearm, creeping upward to clutch at his aching bicep. The nightmares. The bodies. Japheth Dury gurgling blood on the reservoir rooftop. Mary.

He is all too aware of all the things that plague Laszlo Kreizler.

A mist passes across Laszlo’s dark eyes, the column of his throat working hard against the swell of emotion that strangles his words. “I cannot trust myself to encounter all the shadows of the world and not to be consumed by the darkness that I find.” 

And the rasp of his voice -- the uncertain pronouncement -- reminds John of the hollow words spoken in the hotel corridor.  _ The darkness is endless, John, and I do not have even the light of a match by which to see _ .

“You have me.” The words are out before John is fully aware of what he is saying, before he can catch them. And there is no taking them back.

“What?”

The heat rises rapidly in John’s face and he is grateful for the cover of darkness. But -- he has already kissed Laszlo. There is nothing for it but forging forward, painfully earnest. “You think you are alone to face the darkness -- but you always have me. Whatever that counts for.”

It is almost a confession. 

Just enough to leave Laszlo stunned, reeling. And it bleeds some of the pain from the corners of his mouth, the tight anguish from around his eyes; leaves him soft and silent. For a long moment he says nothing, and John imagines he has ruined everything, and then. “Far more than you think, Moore.” His voice curls around the words, dazed. Wondering. “It counts for far more than you think.” 

And John wants nothing more than to close the divide between them, to draw Laszlo close. But he hesitates. John Moore has had very little luck as a gambling man, but he knows to play his cards carefully now. Knows that he risks far more than any sum at the card tables. “Will you stay?”  _ With me? In bed? _

Laszlo offers him a weary, self-recriminating smile. “I fear I will make a poor bedfellow tonight.”

As though they have not already spent nights kicking one another in their sleep, snoring in each other’s ears, half-asleep and grumbling and soothing one another through unhappy nightmares.

John risks a half-step closer, his voice tender. “That hardly matters.”

There is something distant -- thoughtful -- in Laszlo’s eyes. He tucks his bad arm in close, the good hand reaching up to ghost over his lips. Caught in a memory.  _ Bloodstains. Wailing. Blind panic. And… the quick, adrenaline-sharp press of lips. _ “John.” His voice is a rasp, ragged around the edges. Afraid to even ask. “Did you…?” A frown. It can’t be possible. “You kissed me.”

The taste of blood and salt and Laszlo’s lips dry beneath his own. 

“I --” John twists his fingers together, and it is not adrenaline that sings wild and hysterical beneath his skin now but nerves. A terrible, creeping nausea. How does this end? “Well… yes. I did.”

“Oh.” Soft. Surprised. 

The ends of Laszlo’s overlong hair have started to curl, caught in the blue of the moonlight, and John has never seen such an expression on his face before -- half-wonder and half-terror -- before the mask falls back into place. 

_ Impossible _ , Laszlo thinks.  _ John couldn’t have _ … But he had. “It is understandable -- when one experiences a significant mental and nervous shock, emotions are heightened.” And it tastes bitter and bilious on his lips. The lie. The fast, rambling words spilling from him, attempting to justify, to rationalize, to grant John an easy way out. “The response to those emotions can be…”

“Laszlo.” 

“Hmm?” He startles. Wild-eyed.

_ Für die Liebe Gottes _ , it will break his heart. Laszlo cannot bear it.

“I did not _ kiss you _ because I was in shock.” John screws his courage to the sticking place, then. Each word spoken with careful deliberation, intently punctuated. They cannot afford misunderstandings, whatever happens next. “I kissed you, Laszlo, because I have feelings for you.” His voice softens. Careful. Afraid.

“You…?” 

And there is no turning back now. The truth will out and John is helpless to stop it bursting from him -- a confession. A terrible, dangerous admission. “ _ I love you. _ ” Raw-voiced and ruinous. “You can tell me that it’s a perversion, that it goes against all civil codes and social mores -- I already know, and I am  _ frightened _ to risk your friendship by telling you. But I cannot keep denying it, Laszlo.”

Laszlo flounders. Hardly comprehends. “I do not -- I…”

“I’m sorry.” What has he done? The panic rises, crushes his lungs behind his ribs, squeezes the breath from him in a rush of apologies. There is no taking it back -- but if he can mitigate the damage... “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to be like this. I --”

Laszlo is suddenly across the room, is upon him in an instant with wide dark eyes, and John is certain he will be punched -- braces himself for the blow -- but instead it is Laszlo’s long fingers fisting in his nightshirt and he feels just how badly the alienist is trembling.

And John -- John does not have any words. Cannot even stammer out Kreizler’s name before Laszlo closes the last inch between them and kisses him.

It is quick and graceless, no better than their first kiss -- if it could be called that. Barely more than a brush of lips and beard and trembling breath. And Laszlo, when he pulls away, seems fractured. Fragile. An onslaught of emotions spilling through the cracks.

John savors the sweet bravery of the kiss, stunned. Watches as Laszlo, half-wild and breathless, licks his lips. And neither of them knows quite what to do with themselves, what to make of this new and tremendous revelation. “I didn’t think…  _ Laszlo _ .” His voice breaks.

“Please.” Laszlo closes his eyes, stricken. Breaking softly apart. And he cannot yet bring himself to admit it -- to say the dangerous, damning words aloud. Not when he knows what his love brings. “Don’t ask me, John.” 

More than he ever has before, John sees the frightened child in Laszlo, the imprints of trauma that have shaped him, and all of the fears and tragedies that make him hesitate now. “Then I won’t” he reassures Laszlo softly, risking a step forward as Laszlo stumbles back. “I won’t  ask, Laszlo. Just don’t turn me away?”

He can’t. There is no turning John away, no matter how hard he might have tried in the past .  _ Why must you push away those who care for you? To bring you pleasure or pain?  _

_ The question you should be asking is not why I push you away but why you stay. _

The answers are obvious now.

John telegraphs each movement, drawing his palms up the length of Laszlo’s arms, folding him close. And it is the final blow that shatters the last of Laszlo’s fragile composure, drags a terrible, wounded sound from the depths of him when he crumbles into John’s embrace. It is a sound that echoes in John’s own soul -- fear and anguish and profound relief.

“Will you come to bed?” John whispers the question to the damp crown of Laszlo’s head.

“I won’t sleep.”

“Let me hold you, then.” It’s presumptuous, John knows it, but if ever closeness and comfort was warranted… He does not think he has it in him to let Laszlo go now.

A hard swallow. Something working behind Laszlo’s dark eyes. “Very well.”

John turns down the bed, deliberate, hyper-aware of Laszlo watching him from across the mattress. This is completely different than the routine of bed-sharing they had established to ward off the plague of nightmares. There is no polite separation, no pretending, brushing off the careful touches as accidents. The space between them seems infinite, unbridgeable, until John harrumphs -- reaching across to draw Laszlo in.

Mindful of his aching right arm, he half-manhandles Laszlo, guiding him down at his side and cradling him close. Laszlo, for his part, remains stiff and unyielding as if he had been carved from stone. John squeezes his shoulder. “Is this all right?”

In lieu of an answer, Laszlo shifts up on his elbow, shuffling until his head is resting warm and heavy on John’s chest, an ear pressed to the steady rhythm of his heart. The trembling fingers of his right hand find a handhold the front of John’s nightshirt. Settled, Laszlo grunts out a gruff, contented noise. “Better.”

They will revisit this, when the shock has faded, when the madness of the evening can be exposed to the light of day. For now, there are no more words needed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw Phantom onstage over the weekend and I am MOTIVATED to write the next few chapters of this thing!

Two days after the accident in the Opera Populaire, the newspapers continue to offer up headlines that shout from  _ La Gazette _ :

TWO HUNDRED KILOS ON THE HEADS OF PATRONS.

FLIGHT OF THE SOPRANOS.

Laszlo has installed himself in the parlor’s most comfortable armchair, bundled in his dressing gown. He devours the news, dark eyes skimming over the pages -- occasionally, as he putters around the coffee service, John catches him murmuring a sentence aloud, picking his way through the translation. 

“You don’t need to read about it, Kreizler, we were  _ there _ ,” John reminds him, setting one of the delicate bone china cups at Laszlo’s elbow. And -- just because he can, because he is allowed to -- he presses a quick kiss to Laszlo’s temple.

He cannot help but smile at how much it flusters the alienist; something as small as a kiss able to make Laszlo Kreizler squirm and blush, looking quickly away. 

“Only two dead,” Laszlo informs him, clearing his throat and shaking out the thin newsprint. “Struck by the chandelier. They do not have a number for those injured.”

John squeezes his shoulder, wishes that Laszlo would not torment himself with the reports. But, then, he would not be Laszlo if he did not investigate every small detail, did not pursue truth and understanding with his obsessive tenacity.

“Listen to this, John.” Laszlo sits up straighter, glancing briefly up at John before he begins to read, the translation slow and careful. “Madmoiselle Carlotta Giudicelli, headlining soprano at the _Palais Garnier_ , has fallen ill in the aftermath of the terrible accident with the Opera House chandelier. Citing the apparent dangers of the House, the soprano has refused to perform in the coming weeks without assurances as to her safety. One can only wonder if Madmoiselle Christine Daae -- the engenue who first took the stage in  _ Hannibal  _ \--has made a similar choice. Madmoiselle Daae has not been seen nor heard from since the accident.”

John settles himself in the chair across from Laszlo, flummoxed. Whatever thread Laszlo has grabbed onto, whatever he has found between the words, John cannot see.

“So they do not wish to work in a theatre where conditions are unsafe.” John certainly cannot blame them. “I hardly see why you have latched on to that information.”

A shrug.

“Curiosity, I suppose,” Laszlo hums distantly. Considering. “Interesting, how different persons might react to a traumatic incident.”

“Indeed.” John cannot help the faint sorrow that tinges his voice. Laszlo, bitter and angry and ready to wound -- nursing his own anguish and agony. Withdrawn, hollowed out. His eyes so terrifyingly vacant on the reservoir rooftop, in the Populaire’s foyer. How much trauma have they seen one another through, now? 

“I find this article of particular interest.” Unperturbed, Laszlo passes the paper to John, stabbing his finger at the article of interest. “There is some agreement that Madmoiselle Daae has not retired from the spotlight and is, in fact, missing.”

John folds over the paper, studying the article and it’s bold-print headline. DIVA TENDERS RESIGNATION, COVER DOES A MOONLIGHT FLIT. “Missing? So she ran off, is that really the most surprising thing?”

“Perhaps.” Laszlo remains nonchalant. “And perhaps not.” He settles back in the chair, recrossing his lean legs. “A note was delivered from Julie this morning -- she requests that we join her at  _ Cafe de Flore _ this afternoon.”

“Well then. I suppose we’re going to  _ Cafe de Flore _ .”

On the Boulevard St Germain, they find that Julie has already commandeered a table alongside the tall, dark-eyed woman she introduces as “my beloved, Adela.”

All nervous energy and emotion, Julie nearly topples her chair when she stands to greet them, seizing John and Laszlo each by the hand. “My God,” she proclaims “when Adela told me of the accident -- of all the nights to send you to the opera!  _ Est-ce que vous allez bien? _ You were not hurt?”

“No,” Laszlo is quick to answer, shaking his head briefly. Not injured, not really -- Laszlo’s battered spirit, the healing of John’s quiet reassurances, were better left unaddressed. Even with Julie Valcourt. “No, we are fine.” 

“And thank heaven for that.” Julie settles back into her chair, relieved. “Adela is a seamstress at the Populaire. She saw much of the aftermath.” John watches as her small, callused finds Adela’s on the tabletop, squeezing. “What a catastrophe.”

“Really?” There is a zealous, golden spark in Laszlo’s eyes as he leans in across the cafe table, pinning Adela with his sharp attention. “What do you make of it all? The accident with the chandelier, the cast who have disappeared?”

Adela hesitates, uncertain just how much to reveal. “There are some in the opera house” she confides softly “who believe it was no accident at all.”

“The opera ghost?” Laszlo’s eyebrows lift.

“You told them?” Adela rounds on Julie, her plum-dark eyes accusing. “Julie --”

“That ghost is real then, as far as you are aware?” 

“Laszlo.” A warning note in John’s voice.

Adela studies the alienist for a long moment, the open curiosity in his eyes, the steadiness of his manner. Julie has trusted him, and that is reassurance enough for her. “Three years now, there have been...  _ strange  _ accidents. Counterweights falling through the floorboards, backdrops that topple and nearly crush actors, things disappearing -- one of the theater’s horses vanished from the stables without a trace. And now, the chandelier.” Adela spreads her hands to ask  _ what else could it be? _ “This is certainly the work of a malevolent spectre.”

With a glance between them, Julie prompts her lover gently. “Didn’t you say that the prima ballerina --  _ La Sorelli _ \-- had seen the ghost?”

“ _Non_.” Adela purses her lips. “It was the little ballerinas -- they all went running to La Sorelli when they came upon the ghost in the wings. Meg Giry and Jammes were the ones to have the best look at the _fantôme_.” Her voice grows soft, hushed with fear as though the ghost of the Opera Populaire might somehow overhear. “They said it was like a corpse, to look upon him -- his flesh like parchment and only a skull atop the shoulders…”

“Well.” Laszlo mulls over her words, offering thoughtfully “ghosts do not have flesh, do they?”

Troubled, Julie asks “you think a man could do these things?”

“I think nothing, yet,” Laszlo assures her, smooth in his own certainty. “Except that there is surely a rational means for understanding these happenings. Perhaps this ghost has been conjured simply as a means of explaining the accidents of the  _ Populaire  _ \-- a folk story given too much reign, or a  _ folie à deux _ . A shared delusion, that is.”

At his elbow, John shifts; uneasy with the direction of their conversation.

“ _ Delusions _ do not cause these kinds of accidents,” Adela protests.

“No. But humans do -- and the human brain is a fallible thing.”

By the time they part ways with Julie and Adela, there are a hundred new theories and questions bright in Laszlo’s eyes, and John is exasperated by all of it.

“It is fascinating.” Laszlo musing as they walk along the avenue, lingering in the cool sunshine. There is a dream-like quality that softens his voice, the drifting half-question of an idea forming that John is so familiar with. “They have built a whole subculture in the opera surrounding this supposed ghost -- the avoidance of the lower levels, the maintenance of Box Five on its behalf. There are whole rituals centered on appeasement as a means of preventing misfortune in the theater.”

John steps off the curb, raising his arm to hail a hansom. “In the same way that salt is thrown over the shoulder to ward off evil.”

“Indeed!” Scanning the boulevard, John does not catch the way Laszlo lights up so delightedly at his comparison. And Laszlo is lost to his inspiration, the ideas gathering, coalescing at the forefront of his mind. “An anthropologist like Boas might have valuable insights into the subject…” But this is not a cultural study, and Laszlo shakes off the train of thought before it can spiral any further. “But we are not interested in cultural phenomenon, are we John? Rather, in the entity these rituals surround.” 

Here in Paris they can be just a little bit bold, and Laszlo lets John take his hand, boosting him up into the carriage. And, before John can protest, Laszlo informs their driver “the  _ Palais Garnier _ , thank you.”

John slouches in his seat, glowering across the confines of the carriage at Laszlo. “Unbelievable.”

“I wish only to inquire after the victims of the accident.” But Laszlo is no fool -- John has known him too long to miss the glitter of mischief and inquiry in his eyes. “If Miss Daae happens to be among that number, there is no fault in that.”

And it really is unfortunate; that John finds Laszlo so uniquely charming, that he is incapable of saying ‘no’ to the alienist. “Oh  _ fine _ .”

It is strange, to see the theater in the afternoon light -- the statues towering along the archways do not seem so much to watch the passing crowds, the pale stone warming in the sun. Such a different facade than the building they had fled only two nights ago.

They are confronted in the golden lobby almost immediately by raised voices, bickering furiously in lilting French. A pair of gentlemen on the grand staircase, both of late middle age, shrugging on their coats as they argue.

“An utter catastrophe, and yet we still have queues as far as the eye can see outside the doors. There is nothing like scandal for a business, Firmin.”

“We shall have to cancel.”

“And why?”

“ _ We have no cast, Armand _ .” And these must be the managers of the Garnier, Richard Firmin and Armand Moncharmin. “La Carlotta and Piangi have abandoned us, Madmoiselle Daae has --” And Firmin’s eyes skim over John and Laszlo, focus instead just beyond the pair, a cloud of despair descending over his face. “ _ Por l’amour de Dieu -- _ ”

“Please Monsieurs!” The youth can be barely twenty, with a thin moustache and fine bearing when he bounds up the stairs to meet the Opera Populaire’s management halfway. “Madmoiselle Daae -- is she taken ill?” 

Flustered, caught on the step with no escape, Moncharmin offers a placating hand to the boy. “Now, Victome, it is nothing to worry yourself over --”

The young Vicomte is persistent, trembling with emotion. “What is the matter with her? I have tried to send a message but there has been no word at all. Was the doctor of the Opera sent ‘round?”

“She did not ask for him.” Firmin turns up his long, thin nose at the boy, dismissive. “And, as we trust Madmoiselle Daae, we took her word that he was not needed.”

“But --”

“Now,  _ please _ , Monsieur le Vicomte.” Armand Moncharmin shrugs his heavy shoulders, doing up the buttons of his greatcoat, and they are gone -- brushing past the Vicomte as they continue down the wide staircase.

The boy slumps, leaning heavily against the rail. A patron? An adoring audience member hoping for a word with the young diva?

“Perhaps we should --” John exchanges a glance with Laszlo, sees immediately the machinations of some scheme at work upon his face. “Oh no. You’re up to trouble, I can see it.” 

Exasperated, John rolls his eyes, shaking a stern finger beneath Laszlo’s nose. “Kreizler, don’t even think it -- you won’t be getting any answers here, especially not...”

“ _ Monsieur les Gérants _ .” Laszlo raises his voice to call a greeting, muttering an aside to John as he slips past. “Be sure to introduce yourself with your press credentials.”

John hisses “ _ why _ ?”

But Laszlo is already closing the distance between them, offering his left hand. And that gives John a pause -- abrupt, serious Laszlo who eschews such physical contact, unwilling to draw attention toward his damaged right arm, suddenly so genial.

“Monsieurs Firmin and Moncharmin, this is --” Laszlo inclines his head toward John.

“John Moore.” He just barely manages to pick up the thread, still thrown by Laszlo’s farce. “I’m an illustrator with the New York Times.”

“And  _ you _ , Monsieur?” 

“Laszlo Kreizler.” John notes the strange absence of the familiar  _ Doctor _ leading his introduction, the glitter in Laszlo’s eyes. What the devil is the man playing at? “I had hoped we might ask you some questions regarding the accident last night -- the tragedy with the chandelier. Do you know what caused it to fall?”

Firmin’s eyes flicker sideways, the briefest of hesitations. “It was… an unfortunate mechanical failure.”

“The chains were old,” Moncharmin adds. The sentence clearly well-rehearsed.

“I see.” Laszlo’s curious, umber eyes bore holes into the souls of the managers. “So, this accident has nothing to do with the rumors of a phantom roaming the Opera House?”

“ _ Pardieu _ !” Firmin reddens, the exclamation spat between tight lips. “Your accusations, sir, are  _ unfounded _ . There is no ghost in this theater.”

Like a dog with a bone, Laszlo will not let the issue go. “And what of the supposed disappearance of Christine Daae?” He presses. “It is said she has been neither seen nor heard from since the accident.”

“Your questions are most uncalled for.” Moncharmin draws himself up, blustering. Incensed. “Madmoiselle Daae is likely just fine.  _ There is no ghost _ . Now please, leave us.”

And, as Laszlo opens his mouth to argue, John decides it is best to intervene.

“I apologize, gentlemen.” He seizes Laszlo by the elbow, his grip just tight enough to broker no arguments. “We won't waste your time, further.  _ Bonne Journée _ .” And he steers Laszlo down the marble steps, drawing him well away from the irate _Populaire_ management. Whirling on Laszlo, he grinds out between clenched teeth “you are  _ maddening _ .”

“Your French is atrocious,” Laszlo informs him coolly, as though that is the issue at hand. “And you cannot tell me you are not intrigued --”

“ _ Pardon, Monsieurs -- _ you mention Miss Daae.” It is the young Vicomte, all hopeful eyes and nervous, twisting hands. “Have you any news of her?”

They hesitate.

_ What the hell have you gotten us into, Laszlo? _

“ _ S'il vous plaît _ . Please.” And then, realizing his ill manners, the boy offers a slender, sturdy hand. “I’m sorry. My name is -- I’m Raoul. The Vicomte de Chagny.” He tacks the title on like he isn’t quite sure what to do with it.

This time, Laszlo does not extend his hand. “Doctor Kreizler,” he inclines his head politely, offering the Vicomte de Chagny a thin smile. “This is my associate, Mister Moore.”

Impatient with pleasantries, Raoul shifts from foot to foot. “About Miss Daae --”

“No.” Laszlo softens marginally. “We have heard only what has been written in the papers.”

“You know her?” John knows well enough how the Opera works -- how delicate ballerinas and beautiful  ingénues were visited in the wings by gentlemen lovers, by men of the upper class who would serve as patrons, take them as mistresses.

Raoul’s admission is wistful, distant. “Once, yes.” And then, shaking off the memory, he turns his attention fully on John and Laszlo. “I have not seen her for many years, but she is deeply changed from the girl I knew. There is something…  _ haunted  _ about her now.”

A slow, unspoken understanding passes between John and Laszlo.

“I fear you will find that time and circumstance have a way of doing such things to people,” Laszlo offers gently. Patient. “None of us can ever be the same as we were when we were children.”

And only John knows the true weight of that statement.

“I am worried for her. I fear something terrible has happened and I cannot find a soul who will believe me.” Raoul snarls fingers in his fair curls, wracking his brain, still unable to piece the truth of it together. “I went to see her after her debut, to congratulate her, to let her know I had not forgotten her -- she was a woman possessed, I tell you _Monsieurs_. I have never known her to behave so strangely, and…” He hesitates to say it, but the confession is desperate on his lips, needing to be heard. “It sounds like madness.”

This is the Laszlo that John knows so well; the steady, clear-eyed man who speaks so gently to frightened children, brilliant and quietly reassuring in spite of himself. “I deal every day in madness, Monsieur. I assure you, there is little you can say to alarm us.”

And, somehow, the Vicomte de Chagny is reassured. He speaks quickly, as though to hesitate will see the truth vanish from his tongue. “She behaved so unusually, sent us all away -- I could not help but linger by her door, concerned. And… I heard a voice.  _ Christine, you must love me. _ ” He pitches his voice low, unable to imitate the rich timbre of that voice that he had heard so clearly.

“A suitor” John supplies. “That is not the strangest thing --”

“We had all left the room!” Raoul protests. “A man could not have concealed himself in Christine’s dressing room unnoticed, and I was at the door -- no one passed me to enter. I couldn’t fathom it.” He flushes. “I admit I listened at the door; she offered her soul and the grave voice replied what a beautiful gift it was -- that angels had wept to hear her sing.”

The curious, thoughtful furrow has appeared between Laszlo’s eyebrows, the tale turning over in his mind. “What happened then?”

“Well, I lingered for a minute longer. Away from the door, in the shadows.” The young Vicomte shrinks, embarrassed to confess to his loitering at Christine Daae’s door. “I wanted to see. To know who this man was who entertained her attention all alone. Eventually Christine left -- she walked right past me in the darkness -- but no man ever left the dressing room. Not for the half-hour I must have stood there waiting. And there is only the one door.”

Skeptical, John imagines that all sorts of things might have occurred in that half hour, whether Raoul had been aware or not.

And, perhaps Laszlo is in agreement. “The mind can play tricks…”

“I know what I saw and did not see,  _ Monsieur _ !” Raoul throws out his arms, overcome with emotion. “But I do not know what  _ Christine _ has seen. When we did speak, some days later, I confronted her about the voice -- whether it was a suitor -- and she claimed to have been visited by an angel.”

This catches Laszlo’s attention. Snags at attaches itself at the forefront of his mind. “An angel? Had she made such claims before?”

Raoul shrugs, uncertain. “Her father -- Herr Daae -- he told us stories of angels, of the Angel of Music, as children. That is who Christine claims has been visiting her, serving to tutor her; this Angel.”  And, shaking his head, the Vicomte says miserably. “I feared she was the victim of some cruel prank, and now she is  _ gone _ and I fear even worse.”

The poor, besotted boy.

And they should leave it at that -- offer their murmured reassurances and condolences, slip away and be done with it. Speak no more of phantoms or sopranos vanishing into the air. But Laszlo, champion of lost causes, forver intent on interrogating the bizarre darkness, draws a calling card from his coat pocket. “John, a pencil if you please?” 

Fishing in his pockets, John passes him a stick of charcoal -- one of the many drawing implements forever secreted about his person -- admonishing Laszlo with a stern look.

Laszlo scratches out their address in his cramped, scribbly writing. “I am an alienist -- a psychologist. If, in the coming days, you find the news of Miss Daae has changed, or that we can assist you in some way, please find us at Le Meurice.”

Clutching the card to his chest, Raoul thanks them profusely -- still so young and so full of emotion. Even Stevie, a newly-minted sixteen, seems older by ages than this bright-eyed aristocrat’s child.

John waits until they are back on the street before he gives vent to his frustration. “You cannot really be taken in by all of this?” He spreads his hands, imploring Laszlo. _ Please, for the love of Christ, let it go. No more lingering over men and monsters who might lurk in the dark. _ “What are we meant to do about a missing soprano who is, likely as not, simply avoiding the boy? Perhaps she eloped, perhaps she really is ill and has retired for a time after that terrible accident to recover her nerves --”

“And perhaps there is something more peculiar at hand and you are unwilling to see it.” Laszlo snipes. “You cannot deny -- the vanished Miss Daae and her Angel, this Phantom of the Opera that Julie hinted at…”

“ _ This is not your case, Laszlo! _ ” John thunders, too loud and too angry to be standing on a street corner, arguing with Laszlo Kreizler once again. And then, blowing hard and distraught, his voice cracks. “We did not come here to chase another monster.”

Laszlo blinks, silent and wide-eyed in the face of John’s outburst. When he speaks, his voice is carefully measured, uneasy. “Perhaps not. But…” It is a second chance to prove himself. To assure himself that he is no less capable now. That he can still look unflinching into the darkest corners of the human psyche. “I must.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, it's been a million years since the last update. However, in my defense, I really hate all the research I have to do to keep these chapters accurate to the Phantom plot and to the time period.

“You are angry with me.”

John has spent the last half-hour chain-smoking at the hotel window, letting one cigarette after another burn down to stubs between his fingers, each of them doing their damndest to ignore one another. He turns slowly, with automaton stiffness, to study Laszlo through the lazy drifts of smoke -- Laszlo, with a book splayed out on the arm of the settee, his good hand turning the pages too slowly to really be reading.

Now he stares up at John with dark eyes, intentionally nonchalant even as he searches his face for reassurance, for the anger he is sure simmers below the surface. And Laszlo presents it as a statement, a fact, but John hears the wary questions beneath his words.

“No, I’m not angry with you.”

John stubs out the remains of the cigarette.

“Really?” Laszlo lifts a sarcastic eyebrow, unimpressed. What else can it be? Sooner or later everyone is always angered by, angry with Laszlo and his stubbornness. His obsessions and unfriendliness and too-sharp words. “Your brooding might suggest otherwise.”

“I am not  _ brooding _ .” Rolling his eyes, John leaves his perch by the window to hover over Laszlo’s shoulder, carding fingers through the curling ends of his over-long hair. “And I am not angry. Merely… perturbed.”

In spite of himself, Laszlo’s leans into his touch, eyelids fluttering and heavy as John’s deft fingers soothe the endless noise inside his skull. “And what is it that perturbs you?” He shifts, turning his cheek into John’s open palm. “My preoccupation with the phantom of the Opera Populaire?”

“Yes.” 

Skimming his hands over Laszlo’s shoulders, John ducks his head to kiss the curve of his ear. Men and monsters -- all the darkness and cruelties in the world; he had thought they might manage a reprieve. Had hoped they could leave behind the pall of New York and Japheth Dury and dead boys. 

“You know I have no choice,” Laszlo admonishes him, voice low and ragged, squirming with sudden discomfort beneath John’s ministrations. He is not sure that John can ever understand it, is not sure he himself can explain the compulsion behind it. “If there is a threat there, I must pursue it.”

John smooths the back of his knuckles over Laszlo’s cheek. There is fear knotted up in his brow, sadness and the strange, ever-present fondness. “Wasn’t Dury enough?”

It can never be enough. No matter what, despite all his efforts, Laszlo knows in his marrow that it will never be enough to change things -- to drive back his own darkness, to let the old wounds scar and heal over, to explain how and why the world could deal out such a myriad of hurts.

“No.” Laszlo stands abruptly, shrugging John off. Storm clouds gather on his brow, something hysterical rising in his dark eyes. “It was not -- it  _ is _ not. I have to understand…”

There has to be  _ some _ kind of meaning in it all. Otherwise, what is the point?

He stands adrift, unmoored, in the middle of the parlor with clenched fists trembling at his sides. Unsure whether the shrill of his nerves demand that he flee or fight, unsure where he would even run to.

They ought to leave Paris. The thought appears with sharp clarity in John’s mind -- they should leave now, avoid falling headlong down this path into whatever disaster it is that waits for them. Nothing good will come of staying. 

But he knows Laszlo --  _ knows _ him in his marrow, as well as he knows himself. Maybe better. There will be no leaving, not until he has seen this through.

John circles the abandoned settee, finds Laszlo as he sways and scowls and fights against the world -- against himself -- and folds the live-wire tension of the alienist into his arms. Gentle, he presses a kiss between serious eyebrows, captures Laszlo’s lips against his own. 

Incredible that he can. That he can hold Laszlo, kiss him, love and comfort him when he seems like he might come apart at the seams.

Laszlo’s moustache tickles his upper lip, when he speaks. The question a quiet, humid sigh. “Are you afraid?”

It is not quite the question John expects. Though, really, he had never expected Laszlo would be the type to whisper sweet nothings. He hesitates, weighing his answers. Afraid of Laszlo? Never. Afraid of what might become of him, should he pursue the course of this investigation? Indubitably.

“John?” With barely a breath between them, Laszlo looks him up and down, searching his face for understanding. This close, John can see every freckle in stark relief, the faint crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. “I only ask --”

“I heard you.”

The silence lingers, pregnant and perturbed; neither one of them knowing what to say.

At last, John draws his hands up Laszlo’s arms, cups the dear, beloved face in his hands. “Of course I am afraid, Laszlo.” His voice threatens to break, shattering over Laszlo’s name. “I’d be a fool not to be. I am  _ afraid  _ because I know you far too well, and I know that there are no lengths to which you won’t go to flush the truth from every shadow.”

It is an obsession.

Chastened, Laszlo doesn’t know how to protest. How to put to words his compulsion to make sense of it all -- of his own history and all the horrible things in the wide expanse of the world. For all he has seen, John is still  _ good _ , is still untouched. The shadows have not managed to find a foothold in him yet.

There is so much affection in his golden eyes, so much agony, when he looks at Laszlo and says “I don’t want to see you consumed by it.”

It is too late for that.

But Laszlo is not lost, not quite yet, and he will afford John what small hope he is capable of. “I have you, do I not?”

“ _ Of course. _ ”

Laszlo nods, makes his pronouncement as though it is the most obvious conclusion in the world. “Then I shall be safe.” John’s heart swells with affection -- it is as close to a declaration of affection as he suspects Laszlo can manage. And, thoughtful, bird-like, Laszlo quirks his head to the side, eyes sliding up to consider the tender warmth in John’s face. “Perhaps we ought to pay another visit to Adela -- I imagine she might shed valuable light on this phantom.”

_ Incorrigible _ .

By way of telegram, they ensure a meeting for the following morning with Adela Montmarte outside the opera house. Julie declines -- inspiration has struck and she does not dare to stray away from her studio while the vision is still clear and vivid in her mind.

There is a nervous energy to Adela when they find her in the foyer of the Palais Garnier, her dark eyes bright and her delicate seamstress’s fingers twisting in her skirts. “ _ Messieurs, c'est un plaisir de vous revoir _ ,” she greets them each with a kiss to each cheek, voice low. “Julie has said you investigate criminal activities, Doctor Kreizler -- do you reall think that is what’s happening here?”

Polite, Laszlo cants his head, unwilling to frighten Adela with either an affirmation or a denial. Is this phantom of the opera man, myth, or something else entirely? “I cannot say with any certainty,” he concedes. “But I have no doubt that the incidents you have ascribed to this opera ghost are likely to have a far more physical origin than a supernatural one.”

Adela nods, her long face set with resolve. “I hope you are right. It is easier, I think, to expel a man than it is a ghost.”

John is not so sure.

The opera house is still in a state of disrepair, rattling with the shock of the fallen chandelier, the chaos that followed, the exodus of the shining stars of their stage. Laszlo’s eyes linger too long in the gallery, on the splintered seating, the scaffolds rising from the center of the auditorium, the gaping empty wound where the chandelier had glittered. John touches his elbow, guides him past.

“There is a box reserved for this phantom” John prompts Adela “is there not?” He is no detective, but he remembers more than well enough the work the Isaacsons had done in forensics, the fingerprinting and the careful evidence collection. If nothing else, it is something productive, something that will determine whether or not they are truly chasing a ghost. “Can you get us access?”

“Box Five, yes.” Adela nods once, a sharp bob of her head, and sets her jaw. Again, nervousness sets her plum-dark eyes darting. “I will show you, but try to stay out of the sight of the managers, _ s'il vous plaît _ . We may be plagued with  _ fantômes _ , but I do like my job. Nowhere else would I be able to sew costumes for princesses and faeries each night.”

“We’ll do our best not to cause you any trouble.” John favors her with a winning smile, the one that has won him favor in society parlors from one end of New York city to the other, and then spares a pointed look in Laszlo’s direction. A silent warning. 

Nodding his agreement, Laszlo manages to arrange his face into an expression of utter innocence. “Of course.”

As Adela gathers her skirts, guiding them up the golden staircase toward the suite reserved for their phantom, John cannot help but see the images of half-faint women and wild-eyed men superimposed along the empty corridors. Everyone disheveled, screaming, all the bodies crushed together and clamoring on the stair. 

The chandelier had been an accident...

“Here.” Adela stops short -- as though run up against an invisible wall. Wavering, she hesitates to gesture them toward the door. “If you do not mind, I think I will stay outside. I am not superstitious, only… it is only Madame Giry who enters the box.”

Laszlo nods; there is no need for her to explain. “Thank you, Adela.” 

It is John who pushes open the door to Box Five, first lays eyes upon the empty theatre box. Two seats, upholstered in red velvet. Privacy curtains tied with gold braid. The gilt and polished wood of the banister. A luxurious, perfectly ordinary box with an off-center view of the stage’s sprawl. Nothing abnormal worth noting. And yet, they are investigators -- fingerprints and fibres and fine, brilliant science had been what had caught Japheth Dury -- and both men are well aware of the clues that might not yet have met their eyes.

Laszlo takes the first step, beginning a slow circuit around the edges of the box.

Lingering for a moment in the door, John turns his attention to Adela who worries her bottom lip between her teeth, looking up and down the corridors. “Is there anything you know about the phantom’s visits to this box? This Madame Giry, she is --?”

“She was our concierge and… they thought she was the voice of the ghost.” Adela frowns, searching for the right words, for how she might explain it all to them. “She collected the monthly salary on his behalf, carried the notes to the managers with the demands. Messieurs Moncharmin and Richard believed  _ she _ was our phantom, and this is why they let her go.” Leaning through the doorway, she watches as John joins Laszlo in his examinations. “But, still, we are haunted. The chandelier…”

That great and terrible voice.  _ She is singing tonight to bring down the chandelier! _

“One of the patrons who was killed --” Adela gnaws at her bottom lip, tongues away the blood that well up, unnerved. “She was the new concierge. Can you imagine? Newly appointed and they wish to acquaint her with the fineness of the opera, and a chandelier has fallen upon her head.”

John’s voice is gentle. Kind. “It was a tragedy,” he agrees.

Laszlo leaves him to do the comforting -- to acknowledge and empathize -- knowing that John is better at it than he could ever be. Some things can be learned, and some are simply innate. Being  _ good _ … it is why Laszlo as always acknowledged, of the two of them the world has always preferred John Moore.

“Did she ever speak to you about it?” He pauses in his circumnavigation, looks up from examining the upholstery of the twin seats to address Adela with a furrowed brow. “Was there something she saw? Something she heard?”

Adela opens her mouth. Closes it again.

“Anything you know can help us” John reminds her, again prompting ever-so-gently.

“Once.” The word slips from Adela’s lips, a confessions she almost does not mean to make. “Madame was taken ill and requested that I take her place servicing the box.”

Laszlo’s eyebrows fly up, stunned. “You have seen this ghost then?” There is a new urgency in his words. “Spoken to him?”

“I do not know what I saw or heard,” Adela protests, reeling. Even now, she cannot understand it. “The phantom knew it was not Madame who attended to him -- there was a voice, a man’s voice, and it told me to keep my back to the box, not to look inside when I knocked to inquire.” She knots her hands in the taffeta of her skirt, glances up and down the corridor once again, afraid they will be overheard. “I spoke to him and he was polite! He left three francs in the box for my discretion. But… I did look, just for a moment, and I do not understand it Doctor Kreizler -- I was  _ speaking  _ to him -- but there was not a soul occupying the box. I swear to that.”

He nods, the cupid’s bow of his mouth ironed into a thin line beneath his moustache. “I have no reason to doubt you.” Returning his attention to the polished walnut arms of the chairs, the tooled lines of the banister, he searches in the pocket of his greatcoat, drawing out a tin of Lycopodium powder and the leather roll of delicate brushes. “Has anyone entered the box recently?” Laszlo crouches, placing each surface at eye-level as he dusts methodically for fingerprints. “The managers, Madame Giry, custodial staff? Yourself?”

Adela’s dark curls bounce when she shakes her head.

There is not a trace of a print anywhere on any of the surfaces of the viewing box. Laszlo stands, pocketing brushes and powder. Had it been cleaned recently, outside Adela’s knowledge? Had the elusive patron worn gloves? Could it be such a thing as a ghost after all? He levels a stare at Adela, searching her face. “You are certain?”

“Of course.”

“And the ghost -- no one sees him come in our out?” He casts about the space, scowling, the questions growing sharper, more urgent, as a theory takes hold and begins to germinate in the recesses of his mind. “

“ _ Non _ ,” Adela insists. “The only person to enter or leave the box when the phantom is in attendance is Madame Giry, and -- certainly -- there are those who have watched and waited for a glimpse.”

Laszlo traces the outline of the door frame with curious, bright eyes. “This is the only way in or out?”

“Yes.”

And John catches the threads of it, can clearly see what Laszlo is attempting to weave together. He says it softly, dazed. “You think there’s another entrance.”

“You have another explanation?”

“Hallucinations?” John is quick to lift his hands in supplication toward the hard look Adela turns on him, protests rising on her lips. “I only think that the possibility bears considering. What did you call it, Laszlo? A foyer ah…?”

“ _ Folie à deux _ .” Laszlo corrects him, distracted, focused on the interior of Box Five with fresh clarity to his eyes. “It is typically known as Lasègue-Falret syndrome. A shared psychosis. Perhaps…”

Hiding places.

The part of him that is forever nine years old -- forever wary, fearful -- conjures up cupboards and boudoirs to crawl into, skinny knees drawn up beneath his chin. Folding himself up in the dumbwaiter to wait for safety, much to the consternation of the servants. Curled tight beneath a bed frame. 

A boy could find many such places to remain hidden, unseen. But a man...

The light from the auditorium throws John’s shadow, distorted, against the smooth girth of the marble column that divides the boxes from floor to ceiling. The perfect size.

It might just be possible…

“John.” There is a trembling urgency in Laszlo’s tone, the whole of him all but vibrating with the need to know -- the threat of possibility. “Stand aside. If you please.”

And as John steps away, the sound of a question already forming in his throat, Laszlo notices the carpet beneath his boots. A faint discoloration, disturbed as though by a door pushed open.

Laszlo draws his hands over the cool stone, searching with his fingers for a fissure, a latch. Any kind of proof.

“Kreizler, what are you --? Don’t be absurd.” John, watching him with a faint light of concern in his golden eyes, is sure the man has gone mad to be imagining secret passageways and hidden doors in solid stone. “You’ve already said, this isn’t a penny dreadful, do you really expect to find some kind of secreted away hidey-hole or trap door?”

Laszlo raps his knuckles twice against the swell of it, vindicated by the hollow echo that reaches them from within. And --  _ there _ \-- a shift, the whisper of something giving way, and the faint lines of the invisible door are made clear, just a sliver of an opening. Laszlo works his fingers into the gap, has to let John pry the damned thing open. A door clearly meant to be opened from within.

“ _ Mon Dieu _ .” Adela staggers.

Craning head and shoulders to peer within, in the hollow gloom Laszlo can just make out the dimensions of the space -- enough that he and John might both fit comfortably within, side by side.

Half in shadow, Laszlo turns a peculiar look on John, one frightened of this new development. Of the questions that it conjures. “Not a phantasm, that is for certain,” he pronounces solemnly. “This Opera Ghost is no delusion either. Only a man.”

And they both know all too well how dangerous men can be.

“I fear there are many more questions now that will need answering,” Laszlo sighs when they have stepped past Adela into the corridor once more, watching as she secures the door. “May we prevail upon you again to return and continue this investigation?” 

There is an uneasiness to Adela’s drawn features and, for a moment, he is certain she will deny them. “Yes,” she sighs. “If only because I know I will not rest easily now, until the truth of this is brought to light.”

So very many questions.

Laszlo is already formulating plans, dictating endless mental notes, as they descend the grand staircase once more. “I would like to know more about Madmoiselle Daae and how she fits into all of this.” It is all intertwined, he is certain of it. “John, perhaps you might interview the  _ ballet corps _ ? Sketch them, like Degas, make some inquiries?”

And John had hoped it would not come to this, that it would be a flight of the imagination -- easily dismissed -- that he might have Laszlo with his attention undivided. But it is Laszlo, and John knows too well that a challenge, a mystery to unpick, will win out over the possibility of love for Laszlo Kreizler every time.

Caught in his exasperation, his perpetual aggravation with Laszlo and his obsessive genius, John casts his eyes across the expanse of the foyer spread at their feet. Snags on the peculiarity. Looks again.

“Who is that fellow?” He is careful to indicate only with a flick of his gaze, the man who watches them with brazen curiosity. Indian? John wonders. Pakistani? Even across the distance between them, he can see the paleness of the man’s eyes. “The man in the Astrakhan cap?”

Following his look, the rising panic on Adela’s face softens into immediate familiarity. “Oh,” she says, unworried, “the Persian.”

“Does this Persian have a name?” Laszlo, equally shameless, cants his head, staring back at their observer.

Adela raises her eyebrows helplessly at him. “If he does, I have not heard it. Everyone knows him simply as  _ le Persan _ \-- the Persian. He is something of a fixture around here.” She shrugs her shoulders, glances again around the foyer, wary of the watchful eyes of the management. Especially now. “I don’t know much, but there are whispers that he is an exiled prince, or part of the Shah’s police. He is perhaps a little odd, but he is always kind.”

John watches as Laszlo files all of this away in his fathomless mental lexicon -- another fact to revisit at a later time. He takes Adela’s hand, kisses the back of her knuckles. “Thank you for your patience with us, Madmoiselle Montmarte. Give our regards to --”

He almost says ‘ _ to your wife _ ’.

Adela’s dark eyes twinkle up at him, the two of them at once understanding one another perfectly. “Julie was sorry to miss you, but, when she has an idea --” she shakes her head, blows a sigh like laughter between her lips. “I’m sure you understand.”

John does.

“ _ Bonne journée, Messieurs _ .” She favors them with one last smile, a little half-curtsy, and then she is gone, sweeping off to her sewing room and the corsets that will need embroidering, the tulle skirts in need of mending.

When he turns to Laszlo, John can see all too clearly the wheels turning behind his eyes. The sparks of inspiration, of questions that will want answering, of theories being formed and discarded and reconfigured again as he turns these first pieces of evidence over and over. “You know,” John heaves a sigh weighed-down with weariness and no small measure of fondness. “Times like these, I wish I still drank.”

Laszlo’s cinnamon-dark eyes laugh up at him, twinkling. “It is understandable” he muses, a smile carefully concealed in his beard. “Still, I prefer you sober.”

John trails him from the Palais Garnier in a daze, wondering if the pronouncement might be tantamount to ‘ _ I love you. _ ’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "Degas" Laszlo mentions is Edgar Degas, an artist who was known for the use of ballerinas as subjects in his art.


	8. Chapter 8

“It was only a glimpse,” Jammes insists, turning herself this way and that to show off the slender lines of her figure for the handsome artist who has set up shop in their costume department. Adela, with a mouthful of pins, gives her a firm tug back into position, continuing the careful process of hemming her costume for La Basoche. Jammes pouts, addressing John over her shoulder. “But I know what I saw -- he was there in the wings; at  _ least  _ two meters tall and with a head like death.”

Lingering on the periphery of Adela’s workshop, careful to stay out of the way of the seamstress’s work among the swells of tulle and brocade, John perches his drawing kit on his knee, rubbing away a few details. “A death’s head -- the face was skeletal, then? Thin?”

“You misunderstand,  _ Monsieur _ .” At the vanity mirror Sorelli, the prima ballerina, applies circles of rouge to her cheeks, correcting John drolly. “I was invited by a gentleman once to an unwrapping party -- are you familiar with this?”

John looks to Laszlo who, hovering at his elbow, manages to look both deeply uncomfortable among the rotations of half-dressed ballerinas while still attempting to maintain his air of lofty detachment from it all.

“Egyptian mummies,” Laszlo supplies, clearing his throat. “Brought in their sarcophagi to the homes of wealthy men to be unravelled as a kind of part spectacle.” There is a dark shine to his eyes, the explanation bitter with distaste.

“ _ Oui _ ,” Sorelli brandishes her cosmetic brush in his direction. “Like this. Truly a death’s head -- a living mummy; the skin yellow and… thin. Like parchment. And a great cavern where a nose ought to be.”

“You have seen this phantom too, then?” Laszlo straightens at this, sharp-eyed and eager for any scrap of insight.

“Only briefly, but yes.”

Folded in half on the low tailor’s stool, John erases, scribbles, and erases some more before turning the page to Jammes and Sorelli for inspection. “Like this?”

“Yes!” Jammes gives a girlish squeal of terror, hands flying to her face. Laszlo catches a glimpse of Adela in the mirror, rolling her eyes as the gauzy skirts are again wrenched from her grasp. “That’s him!  _ Que Dieu nous protège. _ ”

John offers the sketchbook up to Laszlo.

A gaunt, sunken face; all cutting cheekbones and swaths of shadow. Laszlo stares into the burning eyes, buried deep within their sockets, considers the few dark wisps of hair, the wide and thin-lipped mouth, the raw-edged cavity of a missing nose.

Grim. A death’s head. A walking corpse.

Laszlo makes a soft noise, stroking the tips of two fingers along the line of his beard. And there is something at work in his mind, the pages of medical texts and treatises turning over, offering diagnostics. “It almost appears…” 

Better not to finish the thought aloud. Not in their present company.

“You said you are an illustrator from the  _ New York Times _ ?” Sorelli demands of John, turning from the vanity to look him up and down with cool curiosity. “And you have come all this way to draw pictures of  _ le fantôme de l'Opéra _ for your paper?”

A look passes between Laszlo and John, an understanding that they will get much further with the truth than any attempted obfuscation. “Not entirely,” John admits. “I  _ am  _ an illustrator for the Times, but that isn’t why we’ve come here.”

Adela takes the last of the pins from between her lips, tossing a curl of dark hair from her eyes. “ _ Ces Messieurs _ are criminal investigators -- they were in the audience the night the chandelier fell.”

Alarm softens Sorelli’s fiercely sculpted features. “You believe it was a crime, then?”

“We are not here to make assumptions,” Laszlo is quick to correct her. They will not jump to conclusions -- not yet. “Only to discern the facts. And the facts at this time are that there are two dead, perhaps more than a hundred injured, as a result of the chandelier’s failing. And in the same night, Miss Daae vanishes from the stage.”

“Christine.” Sorelli pronounces her name, slow, as though tasting the weight of it. “The managers have said she was taken ill after the shock of the accident, that she has retired to her apartments for the time being. Funny, though, I never saw her in the wings.” With a flick of her eyes to Adela she asks “are you done with her? Jammes, go find Meg.”

Jammes, who clearly would rather stay and soak up their words, turns up her nose as she goes out.

“Meg Giry,” Sorelli informs the pair. “She has always been close with Christine.”

The young woman who peers at them around the door is thin, sloe-eyed, her brows knitted together with concern. “Jammes said…?”

“Sit.” Sorelli gestures her imperiously into the room, the queen of the ballerinas holding her court. “Have you had any word from Christine? She is recovering well after her fright?”

“Christine,” Meg says the name almost in spite of herself. “I -- no. I don’t know.”

Laszlo softens his voice, prompts her with the gentle manner he reserves for his patients and the Institute’s children. “Whatever you know, it can only help us.”

“She…” Still, Meg hesitates. “She is not in her rooms.”

Sorelli raises her eyebrows, a stern and silent gesture for the girl to continue.

“Something has changed in her.” The little ballerina hugs herself, addresses her words to the floor. “You understand, Christine didn’t always sing so beautifully -- fine enough for the dressing rooms, but nothing fit for the stage. This past year, though, she has found herself a tutor.” She frowns. “When her father passed, he had promised to send an angel to her; the Angel of Music.”

_ The Angel of Music _ . And hadn’t de Chagny made mention of the same?

“Christine claimed that  _ this _ was her tutor. She is… odd, you understand, and I thought it was only that she wanted to keep it a secret, but -- I’m afraid.” Her dark eyes flicker to Laszlo, seeking some kind of reassurance, a confirmation of her fears. “You are a doctor, yes? Could she have lost her senses? I only fear, now that she has disappeared…”

“Was there anyone who might have wished her harm?” John slips the stub of his soft lead pencil into the binding of the sketchbook. “Or, even, a suitor -- someone who had taken a great interest in her -- with whom she might have simply run away?”

“ _ Non _ .” Sorelli gives a firm shake of her head. “No -- there was only the boy; the Vicomte de Chagny. And he has made no secret of his concerns for her well-being.” The faintest of smirks curls at the corners of her lips, a knowing shine to her eyes that hints at illicit encounters and secret romances.

As she speaks, Adela stands and dusts stray bits of thread from her skirts, gathering the bouquets of tulle skirts, stiff tutus, and shining satin into her arms. “Gentlemen,” she dips a shallow curtsy. “If you will excuse me?” The mending and maintenance required by the opera’s cast will stop for no mystery, after all.

“Please.” Laszlo springs into motion, moving to intercept her. And he is not normally so solicitous, taking some of the bulk from Adela’s arms. “Allow me.”

John, left to interrogate the ballerinas, casts an admonishing look after him as alienist and seamstress disappear into the corridor.

The theatre’s back of house is a whirlwind of energy and activity, even in the off-hours. Carpenters and painters cobble together sets, stagehands hurrying across the overhead walkways to test rigging, raising and lowering backdrops. Laszlo casts around, ensuring that all prying ears and curious eyes are focused on their own tasks, before he leans in to address Adela as they walk. “Miss Daae’s dressing room, where is it exactly?”

She stops short, fixes him with a deeply suspicious look. “Why?”

“A theory,” Laszlo shrugs. Aware of the risk she has already incurred, allowing them entrance to the opera house. “Simply point me in the right direction, there is no need for you to be involved any further if you prefer it.”

Unimpressed by the gesture, Adela sighs and shakes her dark hair over her shoulder. “I think I have well passed any sort of plausible deniability in assisting you, Doctor Kreizler.” She shifts the costumes in her arms to point him down a far, dimly lit passageway. “Three rooms down, on the left. Your presence will be invisible,  _ yes _ ?”

He favors her with an ironical bow, a faint smirk hidden in his moustache. “Of course, Madmoiselle.”

“I will join you once I return these to my workroom” Adela promises, clearly skeptical. The unspoken  _ try not to cause me any more trouble than you already have _ is clear.

No one stops Laszlo or glances twice when he passes through the bustle of preparations -- just another well-heeled gentleman courting the favor of a dancer. Finding the dressing room in question, he thinks again of the Vicomte de Chagny and his words about the voice in Miss Daae’s room; a voice seeming to have no owner.

The room is empty, small and shabbily furnished, but the signs of life are still readily apparent and seemingly untouched. Costumes draped over the changing screen, a red scarf trailing over the back of the divan. Flowers from admirers dying slowly in their vases along the mantelpiece. A tin of powder is open on the vanity, and behind it -- tucked away -- is a single daguerrotype; a man with a thick, blond beard and a fair-haired solemn girl perched on his knee. Christine and Gustav Daae.

Laszlo cannot imagine that she -- an orphan girl, by all accounts deeply attached to her late father’s memory -- would leave of her own accord without the photograph.

The dressing room is messy, lived-in, and nothing strikes Laszlo as immediately out of the ordinary as he walks the periphery of the space. But then, nothing had seemed abnormal about the surface of Box Five, either. A phantom who could seem to appear and disappear at will… nothing in the Palais Garnier could truly be as it seemed.

Taking his cue from the memory of Box Five, Laszlo makes second -- slower -- circuit of the room, pausing at intervals to knock against the wall with the head of his walking stick, listening carefully. Adela, reappearing, hisses “ _ what are you doing?! _ ”

Unperturbed, Laszlo continues to tap his way around the room -- behind the changing screen, along the vanity wall. And…  _ there _ ; a faint, hollow sound just alongside the mirror’s frame. He dances the fingertips of his left hand along the wooden scroll-work, unsure just what it is he might be searching for.

“Doctor Kreizler --”

A whispering of movement. A scrape. They flinch, and the mirror melts into the wall.

Laszlo is quick to tamp down his alarm, peering into the darkness that yawns before them. Tracks along the floor, some kind of pulley system rigged to move the mirror… And it should seem absurd, something out of a penny dreadful or one of Poe’s works. But it is here before his eyes and Laszlo ignores the shivering of his nerves to cast a satisfied glance back at Adela. “Ghosts,” he proclaims “do not require secret passageways.”

Adela does not find the pronouncement to be particularly reassuring. “That only means that it is a man behind all of this,” she reminds him, folding her arms around her middle. “Somehow, that seems more frightening. Is that foolish?”

“No,” Laszlo assures her; his voice is soft, careful. He is all too aware of what a man can do. “Just the opposite.” Casting about the room, his eyes light on the little stub of a candle melting on the vanity. Striking the wick, he lifts it to the darkness, wondering just how far the labyrinth travels within the walls of the opera house.

“Doctor Kreizler, you shouldn’t --”

It takes some doing, with his bad arm, but Laszlo heaves himself up into the mouth of the mirror. Finds himself balanced on the edge of a precipice. “Do you think Miss Daae was aware of the door in her mirror?” There are recent smudges in the dust beneath his boots. “And where, do you imagine, does it lead?”

He risks a step into the narrow passageway, intent on finding out.

Adela offers up a wavering uneasy protest behind him, the sound echoing against the cool stone walls. Another step forward, Laszlo feeling his way along the wall, stepping deeper into the shadows where the light from the dressing room does not quite reach -- each footfall seems magnified tenfold, his shallow breathing frightfully loud.

A groan, like cart wheels over gravel. Laszlo whirls, throwing up a hand to cup the guttering candle’s flame, only to see the mirror slither closed -- an eclipse, snuffing out the light. With only the shivering, diluted glow of the candle to illuminate the passageway, Laszlo stands frozen. Unable to breathe.

The memory crashes over the dome of his skull; their mad sprint through the dark labyrinth of the waterworks, Japheth Dury skulking in the shadows. A shiver twines it’s way up Laszlo’s spine, a phantom brush of the long, wicked knife against his cheek. Paralysis siezes his legs, his lungs, and no matter how wide he strains his eyes he cannot  _ see _ .

Trembling fingers find purchase along the wall, curling into the fissures between stones. His heart thumps dangerously, a whooshing of blood in his ears, and Laszlo forces himself to measure his steps, shuffling his way slowly along the narrow passage.

Only a few yards further, he promises himself -- a straight line, there and back -- and then he will return to the mirror door. There must be a mechanism, a way to open it from within the passage; how else could their phantom move so freely through the opera house without being spotted?

There are faint noises in the passage; the scuffling of rats, a patter of footsteps overhead, indistinct voices on the other side of the walls. And Laszlo is too aware of his own heartbeat pulsing in his wrists, of the ache of his arm and the anxious rasp of his breath. Where is he? How far has he gone?

He can only go forward -- isn’t even certain that it  _ is _ forward anymore -- every exhale too loud, every footfall noisy and ringing down the endless length of the tunnel, multiplied. The air seems to cool around him, damp and tunneling beneath his suit, the darkness reaching with invisible fingers to brush his shoulders, clutch at his wrists.

At first, he is sure he imagines it -- the faint smudge of an ember up ahead, conjured from an oxygen-deprived, fearful brain. But he can breathe just fine, and the light is there, glimmering clear and golden in the distance. A way out? How far -- a few miles, a few feet? And then it sways, moving steadily across the empty, unfathomable space.

The echo of footfalls, of a building settling into itself, seem thrown wider now -- his elbows no longer brushing the confines of the passageway. He stumbles, hand flailing for purchase, for the wall that has fallen away from him, and there is nothing. Only his own small candle and the will o’ wisp that bobbing along; and maybe this is their phantom, lantern in hand, traveling along through the secret cellars of the opera house. 

It is pure adrenaline like quicksilver, shivering beneath Laszlo’s skin when he draws himself up, managing one hesitating step after another in the direction of the flickering light.  _ Laszlo,  _ he admonishes himself.  _ You fool -- you damned, stupid fool _ . 

The voice conjured in his thoughts sounds suspiciously like John.

John.

He will not be pleased if Laszlo manages to get himself lost in the darkness, if he disappears into the secret bowels of the Opera Populaire.

And distracted, his ears ringing with the hollow silence of the catacomb that breathes all around him, he does not hear the footfalls. Does not spot the the way the shadows shift, the faint sliver of lamplight in his periphery.

Strong fingers seize his shoulder, bursting from the darkness to shove him backward. He hits the wall -- much closer than he had imagined it to be -- and the sputtering nub of a candle tumbles from his numb fingers, turns end-over-end, and extinguishes itself. But the light remains. A half-shuttered lantern, held close enough to heat his face, shows him the topography of striking features.

For a moment, Laszlo sees only Japheth Dury’s twisted, twitching face in the shadow-play and he cannot breathe -- doesn’t even have the air to scream. All he can think is  _ John. Meine Liebe, bitte vergib mir. I’m sorry. _

“You.” Piercing eyes, a bristling grey moustache. The Persian, nose-to-nose with Laszlo, digs his fingers into the alienist’s bad shoulder hard enough to bruise. “Who are you? How did you come to be here?”

And still, Laszlo cannot breathe. Cannot manage to get the words out with the after-images of old pain rocketing up his arm, the ghost of the Arkansas Toothpick tracing threats along his orbital bones. 

“ _ Speak quickly _ .”

“My name…” Laszlo fumbles, the words loose and rattling in his mouth. “My name is Doctor Kreizler. I -- I’m looking for…”

“The Phantom.”

“Christine Daae.”

With a sigh -- some complicated, dark emotion -- the Persian takes a step back, just far enough to grant Laszlo the room to breathe, to fix the line of his waistcoat and brush invisible atoms of fear from the worsted wool. “You will find neither here,” he informs Laszlo coolly. “Not unless he  _ wants _ to be found.” And he follows Laszlo’s eyes through the darkness when they slide away, searching for the distant light that moves steadily away from them. “Only the rat catcher.”

They watch in silence as the rat catcher’s lantern sways, disappearing at last around an invisible corner into the gloom.

The Persian does not look at Laszlo when he speaks, his voice heavy. “You should not meddle in things you do not understand, Doctor Kreizler.” Adjusting the lantern in his grip, he hauls Laszlo away from the wall, expression grim. “We must go. There are things far less pleasant than I in these passageways.”

“Wait --” Laszlo pushes down the hammering of his heart, draws composure tight around himself. Easier to mask the fear with questions, to investigate and ignore the trepidation that gathers and coils in the endings of his nerves. “Miss Daae -- what has happened to her? This phantom…”

Silent, the Persian draws him swiftly along the twists and turns of barely visible corridors. Deeper into the labyrinth? To the phantom’s doorstep? 

“Who is he?” Laszlo presses. His voice shakes with urgency.

“A man.” The echo of their footfalls has changed, joined with the faint clap-rattle noise of street traffic somewhere beyond the gloom. “A man who has seen no kindness from the world and will pay it no kindness in return.” All at once, the Persian stops; the steely heat of his grip on Laszlo’s wrist vanishes. They have reached the end of the corridor. “And you would do well not to provoke his ire,  _ for all our sakes _ .”

Now, eyes straining to adjust to the ever-shifting greys and blue-blacks of the shadows, Laszlo can make out the door before them, the sounds of voices and horses hooves on cobblestones. With a swift breath, the Persian’s lantern is extinguished. The door grates a snarl of stone on wood, and Laszlo finds himself shoved, blinking and startled, into the brilliant afternoon sun.

It is the Rue Gluck that passes before them. Light, open air and bright buildings and the trickling of traffic along the avenue. Somehow they have come out on entirely the opposite end of the Palais Garnier and Laszlo feels electrified, addled and uncertain in a way he has not been since Dury. Since the case had crawled beneath his skin and shaken out the most terrible parts of him, all the broken edges and unhealed hurts and it seems impossible that any of this is happening. That he has come to Paris, that John had said he loved him, that he could ever leave the monsters to the shadows alone.

“Doctor Kreizler.”

In the whitewashed sunshine, Laszlo faces the Persian once more, memorizing carefully the handsome, careworn features. Not an unkind face, but a firm one.

“I know you mean only to help,” the Persian offers “but the best you can do for Miss Daae, for  _ him,  _ is to let it be.”

How many times has he heard such words? The gentle discouragement -- let it be, there is no use fighting him with your arm the way it is. Let it be, Doctor Kreizler, this is not your case, your patient, your cause. And Laszlo -- obsessive, hungry for the answers to the universe -- can never bring himself to accept it.

“You protect him.” He lifts a knowing, well-groomed brow. “This  _ phantom _ . What is he to you? What is Miss Daae to him?”

There is infinite sorrow in the pale eyes that fix Laszlo in their depths. Infinite acceptance. “He is no phantom, only a man. And he is my burden to bear.” And he should not make such assurances, but the Persian adds quietly “and Miss Daae will be safe. There is nothing for you to investigate here.”


End file.
